Attacked!!!!!!!!

It was a sad, dark, wet, dreary day when I was ATTACKED. Now, don't worry too much because Deepa thinks it's quite funny, and I am sure you will too (at my expense...read on, see if you think it is funny. I am sure you will too.)
Was I lucky enough to be attacked by a human? No, not me.
Was I lucky enough to be attacked by a non-slimy creature? Nooooooooooo.
Here's the story from the "Hindu Times", dated 9.11.2006

"Foreigner's Blood Sucked Majorly"
While walking through monsoon rains in the Periyar National Park, an American girl was attacked by not one, but two leeches, on her right arm. The attacks could have been much worse if she hadn't listened to her wonderful guide who made her and her friend wear special burlap socks which prevented many leeches from sucking the blood in their feet. The white girl had, at highest count, 28 leeches on the burlap socks. She was completely preoccupied with flinging them off of her pants (you see, they kept crawling up her legs. Her weird guide said "You have nice blood) the entire time while in the world renouned Periyar. She was so busy flinging them off of her that she didn't even notice the herd of elephants coming at her. Thankfully they saw her and didn't stampede and kill her.* Her friend, Deepa, laughed at her, and said "This was the first time I saw Catie lose her cool. Hahahahahaha." It was a good thing that her hotel had salt ready for her and put salt all over the enormous leeches on her arms, otherwise this wouldn't have been such a thrilling to anyone but Catie story.
--associated press

It was the sickest thing I have ever had happen to me. However, I have gained something to say to men who annoy me at the bar "Did you know I had 2 huge leeches on my arm for a few hours?" Should take care of them. Yes, indeed.

Since my traumatizing event, we've seen wild dogs, elephants, buffalo, Munnar Tea Gardens (goregous), and the Sri Manakshi Temple (Taj Mahal of the South). Can't wait to share pictures!
Tomorrow we head to Bombay to conclude our journey here. Sad and exciting at the same time. India is a great place and I will miss it tons (minus leeches) but I am looking forward to new clothes (same yucky ones for 2 months = BORING), laundry, Starbucks, dairy, and non-scary driving. Using my credit card, etc.

*Fictional. The leeches, though, are true. Eew.

Maimed people

After our houseboat adventure, we landed in Kumarakomb (those of you who are tracking me on maps, I am sure you have noticed I can't spell anything here correctly. West coast, southern India). There's nothing much written in our travel bible aka Lonely Planet about this town so we just started walking down the only road it has. All of a sudden, as if it were a mirage, a "museum" sign in big blue letters appeared. After scaling the fire escape, we found ourselves in the one and only driftwood museum. It was a riot...unique and funny. The woman who runs it gave us a very endearing tour of driftwood she's found that she has molded into shapes. Aside from showing us a group of 5 piece that was a handicapped family "See, that one is missing it's arm. That baby has a hole in it's hand" she would take her metal pointing stick at random times and hit the driftwood hard to show us it was now a fossil and prove her point: nature works in amazing ways.
We're totally writing to the Lonely Planet to have it added. It's worth seeing and funny.

Kerala Love

The South of India is absolutely goregous. WE've been beach hopping and LOVING it!! What is a typical Indian beach like?
- HUGE waves (i.e. you don't swim if you have a brain...)
- No one wears bathing suits
- men in their tighty whities spashing around
-women in sarees trying desperately not to get all wet
-kids kicking water on eachother
-no one lays out, everyone is standing
-massive palm tree filled, red dirt coasts
-and of course, there are the 100's of Indian people gawking at me if I hapen to be there :)

We're now in the middle of our house boat tour of the Kerala backwaters. We were just in Kovalam and are on our way to Kumaracomb. IT's absolutely breathtaking - 100s of palm trees, rice patties, kids waving to us from their villages, etc. This computer is horrid so I am off - and dinner is awaiting us (why am I going back to work?!?!?! This is so much better!!!) :)
MIss you all. wish you were here to enjoy this with us.

Chennai, Catholic Churches, and Chutney

Chennai - a city on the Bay of Bengal - took Deepa and I hostage for some great experiences for the past 3 days. To begin with, we got an aruyvedic massage which I had been pushing for. We went to the place Deep's uncle recommended and I was a bit skeptical at first because they take your temperature and prescribe oils for you - the "dr." wasn't able to tell me WHY he assigned certain oils to me. I got over that, though, but got even more weirded out when , on massage day, Deepa went first and she simply said "th e massage was interesting."
Relaxing, comforting, wonderful, amazing...these are words she should have uttered. Certainly not "interesting"
That was my second clue I was in for a treat. Here's the massage (all that I haven't repressed) in time order:
1 - take off nearly everything
2 - lay down on your back on a table
3 - have warm/hot oil rubbed into your head
4 - beg the woman not to put that oil on your face because you wear contacts.
5 - act out what contacts are
6 - have oil poured over your entire body and rubbed in
7 - listen to this "thump, thump, thump" noise
8 - feel burning hot packs of something being used to soak up oil
9- flip and have it done to the other side - burning packs and all
9 - get a bath from the woman

Dear lord. It was all I could do but crack up when I was laying there, with this foriegn woman rubbing oil over myself, thinking about Deepa's response "it was interesting" and knowing this paid-for-out-of-comfort zone experience was her first massage. We were happy to have a shower and change our clothes after that one. Ms. P - don't tell Ramanuncle we didn't like the massages - he raved about the place and goes monthly :)

Other than the massage, we had a GREAT time in Chennai and adored the little beach town. Deepa's Ramanuncle, who grew up there, showed us all around - on foot, in city buses, in rickshaws - and provided a grassroots experience. We watched the sunrise and set on the 2nd longest beach in the world! It was truly beautiful when looking at the water...the waves were hecka long (love the Cali lingo?!?!). Unfortunately it wasn't exactly a place you would want to walk without shoes because there were human feces all over the beach since it's now the bathroom for the tsunami victims who haven't sprung back yet. :(
We also went to the Malliballipuram Shore temples which were benefited by the tsumani as it uncovered a lot of new carvings and things of that nature. The temples were beautiful and were the 2nd largest carving in stone to Angkor Wat.

Went to a catholic church and I was the tour guide there. So we walked in and I noticed people were dressed rather nicely, but I just took Deepa and he Uncle to a pew and explained how to kneel and explained they could pray for whatever they felt the need to. Then, a huge camera with a big light came in and I told them that wasn't norlmal at all. Next, a bride and groom came down the aisle!!! Haha. We got out of there rather quickly :) It was neat to see, though, because in India, white symbolizes death and so the bride wore a bright red sari and a white veil.
Also, in most Hindu temples, the gods are dressed in new outfits daily, so the Mother Mary was also dressed daily in a new Sari! Mom - take notes for church :)

We left Ramanuncle last evening and are now in Mysore. Aside from the fact that we have a nice but really annoying guide, everything is wonderful. We went to Sringparam - an old palace which has a lot of beautiful old paintings and are off to see everything possible tomorrow. Items on the agenda: fruit market, local palace, silk factory, music museum.