Hardcore hippies

Well we haven't blogged for the last couple of days because we have been living in a grass hut on the beach. Yup we had no running water and no shower for a total of a week. This place we were at had some of the hardcorist (I'm not sure that is a word) hippies I had ever seen. One dude had lived on the beach in a grass hut for the last 3 years. All these people do is sit around and smoke weed and then just sit in the sun. Rob and I didn't even know what to talk to these people about because I know we had nothing in common with them except maybe that we were both human and thats a tough one to use as a starter for a conversation. We did have fun laying on the beach and swimming when the sun got to hot. One thing about where we were was that the water was crazy boyount. So boyount in fact that the big bummed dude I'm travelling with, who normally sinks like a rock, was able to float on his back.

Now we in Goa and we are starting to get things ready for me to head back to the UK and for Rob to head off to Thailand. This means visiting the airline companies and making sure I have all the photoes burned onto cds to take home with me. Today we are going to check out some churches and maybe figure out which beach we are going to head to next.

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Running in Mysore

Well I'm attempting to get back into shape after taking almost two months off from running. It started Christmas day and I'm finallly starting to feel like I may enjoy this sport again. Yesterday Rob and I spent the day checking out a really awesome palace that I would love to show you pictures of except that we weren't allowed to bring our camera inside. The first thing we did yesterday morning was hike up over a 1000 steps to check out a temple at the top of a hill. On the way up there is Shiva's bull Nindi made out of stone. The thing is huge I think its 5m high so as you can imagine we spent some time resting and taking pictures of it. While hiking up the hill Rob mentioned that it was wierd that I didn't go for a run that morning. I came back with a bunch of bogus excuses and in the end I said I was just lazy and didn't want to get out of bed. Well this is when the beak started yapping, talking about how lazy I was and blah blah blah and this is why he wins at backgammon all the time.

He then threw out the idea that I should run up this hill tomorrow. I think he threw it out as a joke but I had already thought about it and had decided I was going to do it no matter what. Well our total walking time to the top was 32 minutes. We bused down and then had one massive lunch. Well that night Rob and I hit the booze a little harder then we should have and headed to what was supposed to be night club but turned out to be a sausage fest without any women. Its really weird being in a night club without women so you can imagine how long we stayed there. Yup we had one cheap beer then took off. Drank some more and well I like to say I fell asleep and Rob likes to say I passed out and has a picture to prove it.

Well the alarm went off at 7:20 and I was out of bed in a flash. Well maybe not a flash but I did roll out of bed so that was a good start to the run. Put the running shorts, top, and shoes on and walked to the door. The night before I had cut out the map from my guide book and took a compass along with me. You would think I wouldn't need a map since all I should have to do is run towards the giant hill but if you know me you'll know that I get lost in my own backward so off I went. While walking out the door I looked over at Rob who was happily sleeping away dreaming about all the great food he has eaten in India (Its a lot and its starting to show). Well with the map I made it to the base in 13 minutes. It took me 14 minutes to get to the top hitting every single step on the way up. During my run up I was lucky enough to have a few Indian boys attempt to run with me. Poor guys they never stood a chance. When I made it to the top I felt like Rocky except without the energy to throw my hands in the air and shout "Sonja" so instead I headed down the steps to the bottom. Going down was almost has hard as going up because my legs were totally dead but I did make it down in 13 minutes and off I went to run home.

As usual I got lost going home and had to use the compass as well as the map to get home. Well the rest of day was spent travelling instead of walking around because I don't think I would have made two more kilometers.

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The Giant Grizzled Squirrel, from Rob

We are currently in Mysore, Southern Karnataka, but tomorrow or the next day we will by busting our asses up to Hampi, via Bangalore. I had nearly forgotton one incident while back in Periyar NP.

In Periyar I thought you would like to know, we came across The Most Feared Giant Grizzled Squirel. What a terrifying sight that was! Why there was not an armed guard with us, I cannot understand. It was very irresponsible on the part of the park rangers. When we saw the said beast, our guide starting running and shrieking like a girl, so naturally we followed his lead. Glenn's runner instincts kicked in and he started throwing elbows on the narrow single track. An unfortunated German girl caught the worst of it and went down. I know Glenn never meant to hurt her, in his mind he was just running another race. He tends to get a bit intense sometimes. Nevertheless, I could not just leave the girl to die. From my bag I retrieved my trusty pineapple carving sword and faced the evil creature. He tried to circle around me and get to the girl who had a badly sprained ankle He saw the intensity in my eyes and so prefered to go for the easy kill, but I would have none of it. With one hand I fumbled for my camera and made sure the red-eye flash setting was on. Grizzled Squirells really hate to have their picture taken. When he saw me pull out my camera, he was no longer concered about the dame, but only wanted to stop me from compromising his anonymity. At this moment the beast lunged, and I fell into my yoga ninjai training that I had recieved in Varkala. I dropped backward into a roll and then when the beast was nearly upon my I exploded into a shoulder stance therby sending the monster into a tree. Before he could recover I leapt upon him and slashed at his throat with my pineapple sword. The beast howled in pain and ran off into the jungle to die. I looked down and noticed I too had been wounded; The Giant Grizzled Squirrel had ripped my shirt clean off. I then picked up the wounded girl and ran her to safety. Needless to say, she was very thankful. Glenn and I later double checked our guidebooks, there was not even a warning about the beast. They really dropped the ball on that one.

Rob, not drinking

Rob, not drinking,
originally uploaded by Glenn Saqui.

OK we have uploaded almost a hundred new pictures so I hope you have some time because we have some really good ones this time. Just to let people know this picture of Rob is totally fake it was only taken because of the flag on the bottle and the fact the rum was called "Canadian Ice". Remember all you have to do is click on the picture and it will take you to the first picture uploaded and all you have to do click next to see all the new ones. The next one on the list is one of my lunches. It was awesome!

Bus rides rule!

Well today Rob and I went from Munnar to Cochin, where we have been before, and then tomorrow we head north on our way to Mysore. Well we got up early had a really good breakfast and then headed for the bus. We were told the day before that the private buses wouldn't be running because they were going on strike so we had to take the public bus. Well we jumped on and it was one of the nicest buses we have been on in India. The seats were totally comfortable and there weren't that many people on the bus with us. This meant that Rob and I were able to share a sit meant for three people for at least half an hour then the rush hit. I would say about 30 school children jumped on the bus and made moving almost impossible. Well they were only on the bus for a half an hour and then back to just Rob, myself, and some random skinny Indian beside me. Well I think we got on the wrong bus because we arrived at a bus terminal and everyone got off except us because the money collector for the bus told us to stay on. First thought that crossed my mind was, "mmmm thats very strange." Well it got even stranger when we left the terminal and pulled down a dirt road behind a building. At this point I was a little worried because this is not normal but it turned out that behind the building was a gas station and they were just filling up.

After getting a little bit of gas they then pulled over to get some tea and invited us in to have some as well. Well we weren't alone on the bus there was a couple from Holland as well so we all got off the bus and had some tea and some grub. While finishing up our tea the bus dudes informed us that it was time to roll so we threw our tea back and jumped back on the bus. We went back to the terminal that we were at a half an hour ago and waited another half hour before we took off again. Well normally I wouldn't think this as being to odd, except maybe the chai stop, but we then went to the wrong town and were told to switch buses to go to where we wanted to go. Now I can see that people are thinking that I'm being sarcastic about the title that I have for this blog (Bus rides rule) but I'm totally serious this was a fun bus ride. The driver and the money collector had a great time helping us out and making sure that we were fed and had enough chai. I think the bus ride sucked because I think we got on the wrong bus and thats not their fault it ours. So instead of arriving in Cochin at 1pm we arrived at 3pm so it wasn't that big of a deal. We did the same things that we were going to do had we arrived at 1.

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Congrats to my sister

Just wanted to say congrats to my sister, as her and her long term boyfriend Dennis got engaged this weekend. Can't wait for the wedding :)

Glenn

Ah another India park

So Rob and I have been to some really nice parks in India. I mean they have been truly awesome but the other day was the exact opposite. We got early and packed a huge lunch planning on eatting it in the park on our hike. Robs book said the park had a really nice 6km walk and it even gave it a thumbs up. Normally when Robs book gives something a thumbs up it is really good and both Rob and I walk away totally pleased. Well we got a ricksaw to drive us to the park entrance and was it ever an amazing drive up there. The scenery was stunning and because the ricksaw couldn't go very fast we had a lot of time to admire the view. Once we reached the checkpoint we found out they had jacked the prices up from 50RS to 200rs so we blinked our eyes and forked over the bling that they wanted. At this point the tourist police said that we could walk the next 3kms on a nice paved road and then we would have to come down. Both Rob and I were stunned, what do you mean its paved and you can only go 3kms?

Well Rob and I were pretty bitter and thought maybe the dude had no idea what he was talking about so we headed up the paved road. The road was loaded with Indian tourists taking pictures of the scenery. Sure the scenery was nice but it was no different then the scenery we was from the ricksaw. Well we rounded the corner to see 5 wild/tame mountain goats that the tourists were chasing around so that they could get pictures of. These goats were at the side of the paved road, not something I would call wilderness by any means. Well when we got to the top of the hill (3km) there was another tourist policeman telling us that we had to turn around and that we weren't allowed to continue down the paved road any further. This had to be one of the biggest rip offs of all time. I guess I had this idea of a park from west coast Canada where there are trees and you get to walk on a trail and really enjoy the nature. This is the type of park that we had seen all over India but yesterday we weren't that lucky. We did meet an older Indian couple that had the same complaint as us that the paved road wasn't really a park or people chasing the endangered goats wasn't very nice to see either. I think my hightlight of the park was meeting these really nice Indian couple that offered us a ride back into town. Rob and I like to say to each other when something strange happens or we get some wierd dish at a restaurant "You never know what you are going to get in Indian" and yesterday was a prime example of that. We truely had a different idea of what the park was going to be but at least now we can warn people not to waste their money there.

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India Lite Pt 2, from Rob

This story illustrates the mentality of some of the 2-week-travellers as I like to call them or maybe I should say too weak hohoho harharhar.
Last night we were waiting for our dinner to come out and Glenn had thoughtlessly left the backgammon board in our room. He said it was a mistake, but I am sure it was because he is just too tired of losing. Ah but too be fair I have let him win twice now. Anyway, to pass the time, what better thing to do than people watch--and ruthlessly critize of course.
First let me explain the restaurant we were in. It is called Rapsy's Restaurant also known as Chicken Corner. Its not even on a corner but it does serve up mean chicken. We have been in a million restaurants now and with all certainty I would say that Rapsy's used to be a local favourite (and to some extant still is) but since it ended up in all the guide books they have since adjusted to cater to tourists although without losing their Indian roots. They still make damn fine Indian food with a very simple menu. The only real difference is that they have printed an English menu with explainations and they have added a few "continental" dishes such as Israeli salad and Spanish omelet and chow mein with veg or meat. The prices are still ridiculously cheap (Glenn and I can eat till we explode for about 3CAD each) and their are still a few tables of Indian families their all the time--a good sign indeed.
We have met a few people, travellers, that are so scared of getting sick, they do not eat meat at all. To Glenn and I, this is an absurd philosophy. Sure, there are some places where we stick to vegetarian but if we walk into a restaurant called Chicken Corner, full of customers, a healthy amount of them Indian, you better be damn sure we will at least be giving the chicken a try. It just blows my mind that people will travel half way around the world and go home without ever even eating tandoori chicken for example. Have we been really sick from eating meat in India? Yeah probably. We have spent full days horizontal and due to one bad meal I now find the smell of cloves quite unappetizing. That being said, if someone told me there was a very high chance that I will be sick again in the next month in India unless I go vegtable-aryan I would still continue to eat meat. Not just because I am a omnivore, but because I am in India and I want to try everything, that is what I am here to do. I also make a point of trying out all the different vegatarian dishes, the salads, raitas, breads and sickly sweet deserts.
Now back to sitting in Rapsy's, hungry and bored. To my left I spy a party of five, 3 men, 2 woman all about mid forties. They were tall thin people, Europeans. The waiter started to bring out their food, he brought the men's first. Hmm what did they order? I was so hungry that I had to stare.
Chinese. Chinese! The 3 men each had a plate of vegtable chowmein. They were sitting in a gem of a restaurant in the middle of India Lite eating Chinese! I could not believe it. Glenn and I have tried the Chinese food at times and in fact have had some excellent western style Chinese in a Chinese restauant. By the way, we were actually both a bit sick the next day. Would the women be more daring? Would they have a bit of Kerala style fried chicken or at least a potato curry with some chapatti? No, they each decided to go with an omelet. Spanish or plain I was not sure. An excellent choice--for breakfast maybe.
But this is the best part. All five of them looked so sad. They picked meekly at their food. Well no wonder, didn't they know that fried eggs, omelets and chinese always comes out greasy everywhere in India? That the oil they use tastes a bit funny and that eggs are generally overcooked and chowmein is bland with very few vegetables. They all had stooped shoulders and sunken bellies. It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. Yes, I am a mean shallow pathetic man, but we all knew that already. Glenn was laughing too by the way. I felt like yelling at them to enjoy their time in India. Or being more subtle and just asking them how was the Chinese here, oh not that good? Gee I am surprised because the Indian here is excellent. I couldn't imagine what they would look like in another week on that diet because they already looked quite malnourished. They just looked so depressed it was hilarious. It was seriously one of the funniest things I have ever seen, 5 adults picking the worst possible things off the menu and looking like there were going to cry. If that ain't funny I don't know what is...

Nothing Special, from Rob

What do you do when you actually feel like blogging but you are too boring to come up with something worthwhile to say? Here it goes I will tell you the boring mundane details of our yesterday.

In the morning we got up at 5:30 to go on a pretty wicked nature hike for about 5km. We tried not to get too much of that nature crap on us though, but we had little leeches on our shows so they poured powder tobacco to deter them. At one point our guide almost flipped out when he saw Glenn had a tick on his arm. He actually shouted, "Get that off you!" It was funny, at least I thought so. Then afterward we decided to try and find a restaurant that the Brits in Varkala told us about. We had thought we saw it inside the park, but as it turned out, it was actually outside the park, which is another 4 or 5km. I was pooped afterward. My legs were so stiff and I was looking forward to brunch. It was 11:30 and it was the first meal of the day for us because we were up so early to go on our hike. We settled on a different restaurant that looked ok but it was all show. The menu was rediculously overpriced. This incident largely fueled my rant I wrote yesterday. I ordered toast with peanut butter and fried eggs. It was so rediculously overpriced and they only put a thin skim of PB on. Whats up with that? They can't overcharge AND then give you crap food at the same time. Glenn watched me gobble down my breakfast for a few minutes and then they brought out his sandwich. He said it was not very good, but he still had soup coming. He finished his sandwich and I got rid of every crumb on my plate and ten minutes later his soup still had not come. We were livid. Well at least I was. At first I think he was a little resigned to his crappy meal but I managed to get him worked up. Its one thing when you have crappy food and service when you are eating in some dump, but they were trying to be this high class place. We told them not to bother bringing out the soup. The waiter/manager/owner whatever he was was not happy. We were both giving it to him. I told him that I was insulted with the what they tried to feed me and if they want to charge high prices thats fine but they need to provide quality food and good service. We left and went back to our hotel, underfed and exhausted. The plan was to have a nap and go back to the park by 3 to go on a boat cruise. We got up at 3 and were out to the park by 3:30 but all the tickets were sold out. I wished I had stayed in bed. Right there Glenn decided to convert


his pants into shorts and go for a run. I grabbed a rickshaw (because I am fat and already walked 10km) and I got the rickshaw driver to take me where I could get a good cup of chai. I sat in this little shop with the locals and talked about how Kerala is nice, but it would be better without so many tourists. I ate a pastry and a samosa and 2 cups of chai for 18 RS (0.50CAD) I went back to the hotel and did some stretches and exercises for my back which I have been doing for a long time as well as a little yoga I have learned since being here. Afterward Glenn and I found some real straight up Indian food. Best and Cheap. And hella spicy. We played backgammon overdinner (I won again for the 10th time) and then went on the Internet for a couple hours to blog. After that we went back to our room and put a good dent in a bottle of "Romanov Vodka" which is Indian for degreaser. We turned in about 12:30 am after much laughter and some of that male bonding crap.

Not every day is an amazing story, but its all part of the experience so that's why I posted it. Well that and because I was a bit bored. Next time I will be have more interesting things to say.

Our first horrible day in India

Today is raining and blowing and it really isn't that nice so we are spending the day inside emailing, postcarding and eating. Ya I think today will be a tough day. Let me fill you in on what it looks like here when it rains. I think I can sum it up in a couple of words "Mud everywhere". I think that would explain everything. The roads are super muddy as well as the side walks, where they have them. Its really strange to see the locals without shoes walking around in the mud. If I get a chance I'll see if I can get a picture of it because it always blows my mind when I see it. Thats all I have for now.

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India Lite, from Rob

Alright, I think I am going to spew this one off the top of my head. I apologize beforehand for grammatical errors.

We have had a pretty damn good time since arriving in Kerala 3 weeks ago. However, Kerala is NOT India. Kovalum and Varkala are such tourist traps, they should just rename them to India Lite. We originally went to Kovalum knowing full well it would be touristy, but we wanted to hang out on a beach for a few days and party for New Years. That went fine (Aside: I realize now I totally forgot to blog about New Years. There wasn't anything all that remarkable, except that had several of some type of demonic drink called gin fizz and I forgot to brush my teeth before I went to bed, and I kid you not, for 4 days I could not properly brush the top back teeth on my right side because they were so rotted from the paint thinner they call liquor in this country. Oh, also I found glenn outside our hotel at 2am sitting on the curb with his dinner between his feet.) but then we headed to Varkala because it was the next stop north of where we were. Everything in our books said it had recently been becoming more popular but was still much more low key than Kovalum. This was a huge lie. The place was full of hotels and restaurants that were not even in our books because they had sprung up overnight. The electricity would cut out randomly because there were so much draw the system could not handle it. To rent an umbrella on the beach was nearly the price of our hotel.
The menus are all in English. You think thats a good thing? I would much rather order something I have no clue what its going to be rather than order some Indian food that they leave the spice out of for the tender tourist's tummies. I am here for the real shit. Instead I am left with deciding between shitty Chinese, shitty pasta, or shitty pizza. I will admit, a few of them can get your order straight and tasting half decent 80% of the time, which is what they are supposed to do. The screwdrivers with freshly squeezed OJ were really good though.
The rickshaw drivers were such scammers they were charging at least double what they should've been and bartering with them was impossible. One time we wanted to go to town but they wouldn't reason so we left so angrily that we were shouting at other tourists not to get a rickshaw because they were being ripped off and all the drivers were cheats. Out of spite Glenn and I both found alternative modes of transportation. He chose the bicycle and the next day I chose a motorbike for about 3 times what a rickshaw would've charged, and I had never rode a motorbike before and that was fun and I burned my leg twice -- I am holding that against the rickshaw drivers as well.
I digress, what I was trying to say is since being in Kerala we have had very little cultural experiances because there are too many white people here. I hate white people. I haven't even seen a Hindu shrine since I have been in Varanasi but Glenn and I have been considering getting matching Ganesh tatoos. You get the point.

I was once a winner

When I was five my mom entered me into a trike and I totally destroyed everyone. That year my soccer team won a bunch of games and I think my baseball team had a lot of fun. I can't remember the baseball but I'm sure we had fun. I remember the trike race really well since I was racing my best friend at the time Rob Lokken and he always beat me in our street hockey games. I remeber it well it was raining and Robs mom decorated his new bike (he was the first kid in the family so he didn't have any brothers to pass stuff to) and I was in my crappy trike that I'm sure my mom found on the side of the road and thought oh my son would love this thing. Well as usual my mom was totally right I loved that trike like nothing else. Yes I know what you are thinking
1) why was he on a trike at the age 5 and
2) Why the heck is he telling me this stupid story (granted I'm sure Sonja loved it)

The reason for this story is very simple. The girls that we met in Vakala gave us this really nice chess and backgammon set. Rob sucks at chess and refuses to play with me so I'm in the process of learning backgammon since this is a game Rob knows how to play and one he is really good at. This email is to reassure me that I was once a winner because Rob is killing me every game. Oh he is a lot nicer then I am about it and he tries to help me through the game but man do I ever suck. I almost won a game but nope I lost. How can a dude be pumped about playing a game when he loses all the time one may ask. Well I have no choice since the TV that we have only has one english channel and it seems to only be playing highlights from some Indian cricket games back when they didn't have tv so you can imagine some Indian telling a story about something you don't care about. Nothing could drive a man to death quicker then that so I sit back and lose to Rob.

One day I will win and that day will come when Rob drinks triples and I drink water for the night. Maybe then I can win.

G - The trike race champion of Campbell River, 1985

India gives me an earache, from Rob

I don't mean figuratively. I literally have an ear infection, likely caused from swimming in the ocean. I went to the doctor 3 times (2 of them hung over btw) and he prescribed antibiotics, some ear drops, a decongestant, a B complex vitamin, and some other pill which I couldnt remember what it was for. Add to all those pills 2 ibuprofen and my malaria pill and it makes a complete meal. The doctor cleaned my ears out which was incredibly painful. I think usually in western countries they just squirt warm water in and rinse the wax out, but here he just scrapped it out manually. There was one nurse holding my head, presumably to prevent my from jamming my eardrum into the doctors knife or whatever medieval implement he had in there. I can't describe how much it hurt, but he seemed to enjoy my discomfort anyway. Afterward he showed me what came out. That was the only cool part. I think that stuffing things in your ears might be a good way to smuggle drugs or whatever--not that I have been trying to think of ways of doing that. Don't get worried or anything. Anyway, I think my ear will get better soon since we won't have to stay up late drinking and what not.

Finally Leaving Varkala, from Rob

We came to Varkala exactly one week ago and finally we are leaving. At first we were not even sure we wanted to come here since we had already had a week of beach life in Kovalum. I kinda convinced Glenn that we should at least stop here and if we didn't like it we could leave right away. We originally thought we would stay about 2 or 3 days, but then we met some beautiful birds from England. They were the dog's bollocks! Basically in the day we would run into each other on the beach and then meet late in the evening for drinks and dinner. Last night they gave us a farewell gift and we are very impressed by their generosity and thoughtfulness. We took lots of rediculous pictures and we will post them soon, hopefully. Once again ladies, thank you all for the wonderful time, thanks for the gifts, take care and stay in touch, eh.


This afternoon we will catch a train to Kotayam, stay one night and then bus out to Thakkady/Kumily to see Periyar National Park.

Dinners with the British girls

So over the last couple of days we have been hangin with four Brits. We normally meet for dinner and hang out. Well the first night we went for dinner we had to wait uber long for our grub to show up. Well after about an hour and a half the proper brits started to lose it. Gone was their politeness and good manners and out came evil Brits. They started yelling at the kitchen and the waiters. It was hardcore but our food came out pretty fast after that so I wasn't complaining. Well it turns out one of the salads came out to one of the girls and she wasn't impressed with the grated cabbage and carrots so she picked it up and stormed into the kitchen. All I see is arms going up and down and then I see Alex, one of the Brits, throw the food on the poor guy. Well I'm glad I had all my food at that time and Alex did get another salad I'm just not sure what they put into it. As you can imagine there was no tip left.

Well last night was nothing special to report until we started to see this dancing start around a fire. Hey no big deal except this people were on some type of drugs and they were going nuts. Well the Brits are poking fun at them and all of a sudden one of them says "Glenn come on lets see your moves". Bad move cause I was in. I actually walked onto the dance floor pushed people out of the way (all three of them) and then I threw down the best leg grab of all time and threw it down. People from other tables started to look at me and people started cheering. I danced like a crazy monkey for a good solid two minutes and then ran out of energy and had to leave the dance floor to people clapping. Once again I've made an ass of myself to please other people. We'll have to see what tonight will be since I'm sure Rob will have us lined up for dinner with them as well.

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A little competion can't hurt you

Well I'm in the process of getting myself back into shape so every morning I head out for a run. I haven't run in almost 2 months so I'm a little out of shape and I can't stand it and I know why people hate running it totally sucks when you aren't in shape. Well I've been out for 9 runs since Christmas day but yesterday turned into a little more then a run for me.

I was coming back to our hotel when I spotted this white dude with his shirt off running about 700m in front of me. First thing that crosses my mind is wow a white dude running wierd. The second thing that comes into my mind is that dude is 700m in front of me and I'm going to catch him. Let me tell you that before I saw this runner I wasn't feeling very well and my mind was convincing me that this running this was way over rated. Well once I spotted this guy all pain went out the window and I switched into race mode. I started picking it up and closed the gap quickly, my body was know listening to my mind and my mind had one thing in it. Beat this guy and make sure I don't looking hurting when I go by him. The whole point is to look like its a walk in the park when you go blowing by someone on an easy run. Well when I get close to him (he has no idea I'm coming) he starts racing the local kids so I get in my mind that its time to blow by this guy so thats what I do.

I pass him and just turn and toss out a friendly "Hey man where ya from" and pull ahead waiting to see what he will do. He's not into running with me and shouts as I start to put distance on him "I'm from Ohio". I chuckle to myself and head around the corner and up a street then totally slowed down and easily jogged back home.

G

My name is Glenn and I'm an idiot

So Rob and I have started yoga for the last couple of days and in our first class I happened to ask this girl where she was from. Oh I'm from Melbourne Australia and I'm traveling for 6 weeks. So we continue the conversation and she tells me that her and her boyfriend are going to Rajistan and that they didn't know where to go when they go there. Well Rob and I offered to meet them for a drink later in the night to help them out since we spent a month hanging around Ragistan.

Well we met for drinks and I had a few and I thought I'd ask the Joe Canadian question. You know the one "So you're from Canada do you know Joe?" First I asked how old they were and they told me they were 22 so I knew I could ask the question that I wanted to ask. For people who don't know I have relatives who live in Melbourne and are aged (I'm sure I'll get this wrong) 27, 24, and I think 22. So I throw out the question "Do you by any chance know a Rosalyn from Melbourne?" They look at me like I'm crazy and they ask me whats their last name. Now this is where Glenn the idiot comes in because I can't seem to remember their last name and I just stare blankly back at them and respond with that she has two older brothers.

Well we get back into telling them where to go when the girl named Lara Piterman from M.L.C (I got her to right down her name so I wouldn't forget it) turns to me and says, "Is her last name Teskey by any chance?" I almost jump out of my seat because thats their last name and this girl was good friends with my cousin a couple of years ago. Wierd it just proves that its a small world after all.

G

Rob with his stache for the last time

Rob with his stache,
originally uploaded by Glenn Saqui.

Ok ladies and gentlemen this is the last time that you'll see Rob with stache because soon afterwards he shaved it off. This was about 2 weeks ago before we got to Kerrala (South India). We have uploaded almost 100 pictures so take some time and check out what we have been seeing. There are some really great fishing pictures near the very end that are really cool. Hope you enjoy the pictures.
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