Go ahead. Let that sink in for a minute. Admit to yourself that you're a kind of turned on. Just a tiny bit. Or vomit a little in your mouth if you have to. Ok, back to business. Hey. How's it goin? If you're reading this I hope you're well. If you're reading it out loud to someone, tell them to stop being so damn lazy and use their own mfing eyes. So it's been another month since I posted on this here weblog and since then quite a bit has happened in my adventurous life in Asia. When we last left off, our hero (that's me) was nearing the end of the semester. Tests happened, I graded them, no one failed any of my classes, so I'd say it was a positive semester. Positive enough to make me smile.
Yeah. Just like that. I finished teaching health and will hopefully never have to deal with that noise ever again. F that I said. After the semester ended I I took a few days to relax before my trip to India. During these 'relaxing' days I lost my wallet in a taxi. This, to put it lightly, was mega shitty. This meant that only a few days before I began my international travels, I had no money and no way of withdrawing any. Again, to reiterate, mega shitty. This put me in quite the pickle. "What will I do?" I thought.
Luckily I have a couple of great friends named Graham and Luke who both had some US cash on them (it's all about the benjamins) and they lent me enough to cover any expenses I should need on my trip. I had my lovely mother send my new card to India and didn't even end up needing all the money I borrowed, which was sweet, but it's great knowing I've got friends who can take care of me over here if I ever need it.
It took me a couple days to get too India due to a full day layover in Bangkok, Thailand. Bangkok is a pretty cool place. I slept in late since my flight got in around 1:30am and I didn't get to my hotel until around 3. After I got up I started walking around and ended up in a rickshaw with a driver that promised to take me to see 4 Buddhist temples for 50 baht (about $1.50) as long as we stopped by this emporium where someone would try to get me to buy a suit. Since I only had a limited amount of cash I knew i couldn't get suckered into anything like that and hopped in fora ride. We made it to two temples and an emporium and after the second temple he left. Just left me at the temple. However, I never paid him so I guess it was his loss. Sucka. Not really knowing where I was I started walking and came across another temple (they were everywhere) and some dude started talking to me and telling me I could get a rickshaw to take me to these 5 great places for 20 baht (you do the math this time). He flagged some dude down for me and sent me on my way. This new driver was much cooler and agreed not to leave me anywhere. Most of the places he took me were closed since it was still the new years holiday, but it was hella fun riding around in an auto rickshaw again. I stayed in the backpacker area called Khaosan Road and ended up meeting this Norweigian musician named Magnus and we hung out most of the night drinking some beers at a restaurant while others came and went from our table. All in all, I had a good day in Bangkok and I'd really like to go back to Thailand sometime and spend more time there. Oh, I also ate Thai curry and Padthai.
It was delicious.
Then it was on to India. I was thinking I might stay a while in Chennai or travel around in the south before I made my way up the mountain to Kodai (the place I lived and worked last year). The whole point of going back to Kodai was to go someplace familiar for vacation, to see people I know who I may not see for a while again, and to get out out of a huge stanky city. Since Chennai IS a big stanky city I made the easy decision to move on, booked myself an overnight sleeper bus at 9pm and hit the long and windy road. By the by, a sleeper bus is a bus that has actual beds on it. SWEET! you may be thinking. But what you may not realize is that the right side of the bus has two berths side by side. I had the inside birth at the very back. It was my own little love cove that I shared with some Indian dude. fortunately (or unfortunately, however you want to look at it) he kept his hands to himself (and so did I). I made it into Kodai around 6:45am on Saturday the 31st to a still sleeping Kodai. I got some tea and an egg/cheese Paratha at Amsa's:
Also delicious.
As Kodai started to wake up, I discovered that everyone who knew I was coming didn't think I was coming until the next day, so this meant there were quite a few surprises. I found out that my friends Will and Neil were at Tahr Camp with a bunch of my favorite former students and some otehr staff as well. Tahr Camp is a special weekend hiking/camping trip for the students and staff that went on at least 9 hikes in the first semester. I got my Tahr pin last year and since they were camping at the same place as last year I decided to hit the trail and surprise them. It was about an hour drive to a drop point and then somewhere between 3-4 hours of hiking to get to their camp, and I made it just before dusk. There was about 45 minutes that scared me since I knew I wasn't on the right trail, but i could hear the stream that I was supposed to be hiking along, so I knew I wasn't to far off. Since a tall, pasty white guy was the last thing the Tahr campers expected to see walking towards them out of the woods they were pretty surprised. My decision to head straight for Kodai paid off as my second morning there was spent watching the sun rise over the plains from the top of a 1000 ft waterfall. 
I'm trying to make a better composite than that, but my computer is being a bitch. I'll post the better one later, but for now, that should give you an idea of why camping was awesome. On the hike away from the falls the next day I got mega sunburnt as per usual, thus starting the next three weeks of peeling.
There isn't a whole lot to tell about the next couple of weeks in Kodai that would interest more than a handful of people. It was really great to be back on that mountain. I played a lot of indoor soccer, some basketball, volleyball, frisbbee, walked around the lake, ate Indian and Tibetan food, saw my ex-dog (Otis: The Dogg), and drank coffee among other things. I never thought I'd be so happy to be back there, but as my mom has said to me, "India got it's hooks in me", whatever the hell that means. It was really great to see old friends and make a couple really good new ones. The weird thing about going back was that (sappy moment alert) when I woke up on the bus on my way up the mountain, it was the only other time I've felt like I was gong home other than any time I was actually going back to St. Paul. Leaving was really difficult, especially to come back to China where there is very little color or culture, it's winter, and there's a lot of smog. That, and less people that I care about/care about me.
Ok, since this is quite long by now, I'll sign off here, but before I do you can go ahead and check out the new PODCAST. It's a little mellow since I'm not exactly super psyched to be back in China right now, and it's got a few India nods in it as well. I hope you enjoy it. Have a great day/week/few minutes. If you're reading this, chances are I miss you a little bit and it'd be great to hear from you. Again, if I don't have your address, email it to me (warehamenator@gmail.com). Ok. Cool. I'm out. Here's some kittens.
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