Indian wedding

The other day was my friend Swathy's wedding. the ceremony part was all in Tamil so I'm not sure what was really going on but an Indian reception consists of the bride and the groom standing at the front of the room posing for a picture with everyone handing over a gift. So this one guy got up to talk about the groom and he was a really soft talker so i was the only one who heard that Swathy's husband IS A SNAKE CHARMER!! and now no one believes me. but that man said it!! So now i just have to wait for Swathy to get back so she can tell everyone that he is a legit snake catcher a charmer. and because of that i totally approve of him.

It got crazy at the ashram!

For those of you unfamiliar with ashrams let me give you the break down. a commune of gurus that live to chant and meditate and have a peaceful, simple way of life, basically. the ashram Nicole and i stayed at was started by Gandhi in about the 30's in a little town in the center of Indian called Sevigram. the first night wasn't that bad except for the beds we had to sleep on where actually wooden tables with questionably stained blankets. one of the jobs at the ashram was the "bell ringer" the job included ringing the bell every hour, even at night. i dont really see how this is good for anyone. it would really blow to have that job. anyways back to my story our first job was to pick all the pieces of dirt out of the wheat so we wouldn't have dirt in our japotty. every meal we would sit on the ground right across from this old guru, i don't remember his Indian name but the English translation was Prince. he was pretty awesome. so this one night we went to the evening chant where i got bit on the back of my thighs 54 times by mosquitos, i know because i counted, and if i didn't have malaria before i sure do now! then after that Nicole went into our bathroom and finds a rat the size of a small dog just playing in the squaddie. oh I'm getting a head of myself, we our already knew there was some kind of creature living with us because it eat half my banana and stole my freakin head band with my seeds in it. so that night Nicole was certain that the rat was after her because she could hear it climbing up the leg of her bed. so she yells to me, wakes me up, and then teleports over on to my bed where we make a little tent with our Blanket's -keep in mind the "wooden table" is only three feet wide- so trying to sleep wail listening to the rats run around was impossible. but the last straw came when Nicole felt one of the rats nuzzled her back! and we really wanted to turn on the light but it was on the other side of the room and we didn't want to step on any rats. so we yelled really loud and stomped our feet as we both slowly made our way over to the light. then we pushed our beds together put up the bug nets. then we tried to sleep, with the light on my switch blade under my pillow (PS i do have a switch blade got it in mumbai from a street vendor) this all was going down until about 3 am so we didn't get a lot of sleep before we had to get up at 4 30 to chant and pray. then i had to pick up every single little leaf out of the gravel around Candi's hut. i think ill get those guys a leaf blower for Christmas. wait it gets better. after breakfast we go and work in the garden until Nicole and i went into town to get our train tickets. but because of Diwali (an Indian festival) all the tickets where sold out so we had to get one for later that day. then back at the ashram after lunch our last task was to help harvest he gurus marijuana by picking all the leaves off the stems. that was fun. ( i saved saved a few leaves and dried then out in my book for a souvenir) ha ha. then we packed up and busted out of there!

so I'm back packing all over India right now. I left from Chennai about a week and a half ago with two of my friends i met at RSO. first we went to delhi and stayed for about three days then we went to Aligar for a day and then Agra to see the taj mahal. and it was awesome! from there we went to Jaujor and stayed three days, and who ever said jaupor has the best shopping hasn't been there in a long time. we had to to go back to delhi to catch a flight to mumbai so we sleep on the floor of the airport so we would have to get a hotel. one of the girls just went back to chennia but Nicole and i went on the mumbai. oh my gosh mumbia is beautiful! ( i was imagining something from slum dog millionaire) and then we got on a 26 hour bus ride to who knows where to stay at the ashram that i am currant at right now. It was started by gandhi. so ill let you know how the week goes. and ill put up pictures, i just cant right now because I'm at an Internet cafe and i have to get back to the ashram so i can meditate.