Where to begin

Today I thought about 5 different things to write about, but my jetlag is keeping me from thinking clearly. I'm in some crappy internet place in a town called Varkala,
in Kerala India. Kerala is the state, Varkala is the town. It's all the way in the south of the country. We're at the beach, staying on a cliff just above it. t's beautiful and peaceful, but that's a small pocket of what I've seen so far. India is loud, chaotic and crowded. I'm not gonna write too much now as it's hot in this internet place, and i feel like i'm being eaten up by mosquitos. I will tell you about something that happened yesterday though...

We took this 4 hour flight from Delhi after staying in some cruddy airport hotel for 9 hours when we arrived from NY. The flight was fine, but when we arrive Marcia had to go and see some temple or palace or something, that she heard was really cool. "Only 30km from the airport, then we go back up 45km to Varkala. Come on, it'll be so great." I reluctantly agreed, although I would have preferred coming right to Varkala and the beach then seeing this temple. Anyway, the 30km drive went through a zillion shitty towns, one after another. There were people everywhere. The taxi driver was like 70 years old and was honking randomely every few seconds. The windows were open, there was no a/c, and the other drivers were crazy. I saw my life pass before me at least 10 times. Marcia's gulping at the cars coming to close was not helping. The 30km ride ended up taking 3 hours, and when we got to the palace at 4:35 it had just closed.

Back in the shitty taxi, it took at least 4 hours on the same road, past the airport, and the same crappy towns. Our driver looked exhausted. I was miserable and somehow managed to fall asleep in the car. I was awakened to Marcia going "what the hell????" Someone had thrown their yogurt and tandoori dinner from the opposing traffic out the window and it landed through the window on Marcia and the cab driver. When I opened my eyes, I first thought that a bird had shit all over her, then I saw onions and some sort of meat or something. It was absolutely revolting. The driver stopped and tried to help clean her and the car up.

We finally got to our hotel and saw the beach, and it was beautiful. Marcia took a shower and we laughed for hours about the yogurt-tandoori incident. It was a really great way to start India.