In.... Malaysia!

Hello! ... It's been awhile since the last blog update (and awhile since i promised more pictures... heh) -- but, here are both! (The pictures only go through southern India, by the way)

We flew out of India and into Sri Lanka for two weeks since the last post! Sri Lanka is a really beautiful place; basically one huge botanical garden. However, one strange thing was going to places where the tsunami hit... lots of half demolished buildings, piles and rubble, and foundations strewn around ... (oh, and avoid Sri Lankan cuisine ... short eats and hoppers... bleah)

After Sri Lanka, we flew into Singapore -- Singapore is an amazing city! It's on its own island on the very southern tip of Malaysia... the whole country is only 700 km square, but the cleanliness, efficiency, and ... well ... cleanliness after being in India and Sri Lanka is astounding!

And now, to Malaysia! -- we just got to Melacca a couple of days ago, and are going to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow! After that, we've come full circle back up to Thailand... crazy...

Oh, that reminds me! ... for all of those people who read this and want to know if we're coming back, we are flying into Vancouver on the 3rd of May :( .... uhhhhh .... not that we don't want to come back to real life or anything!



You can never go wrong with beach life:



Puja ceremony in Madurai:



Vendor selling all kinds of colorful goodies at a bus station:


Ancient temple in the south:


Hiking through the 'Scotland of India'!


Night trains, baby... after 12 hours of this, you typically don't look quite so happy:


Colorful sadhus!


A street in Mysore:


Katie with her new full-length-arm-tattoo!
(alright, alright... it's only henna :)


The ancient ruins of Hampi!

Banana leaves, thali, and a farewell to Southern India

(Another post from the lovely Katie! -- Marshall)

After lunch, full of thali, dirty fingers, sweating like no other, i wonder who is playing the drums outside and chanting... probably just another sadhu... is he on his way to a dhaba (roadside tea stall) for some chai?

So we have been here what, three months and I JUST now perfected the ability to eat my thali with my hands. You scoop it with your fingers, twist your wrist and pop it in your mouth with your thumb! Here in the south, they give you no silverware, since you are given your food on a banana leaf, and spoons/forks will just make a mess (haha). So you get down and dirty! Marshall told me that he mastered the "hand eating technique" about 2 weeks ago, thanks for letting me know!

So here we are in Mahabalipuram, just about 2 hours by bus... so that is like 30 km (seriously!) from Chennai, where we are flying out to Sri Lanka on the 7th. We visited many temples and, no joking here, more ruins! wheeeee! But one thing that we are taking care to do, is avoid the tourist traps and really indulge in India as much as possible. Days have gone by where the only other tourist I see is Marsh, who IS white enough to count for two...

Heard rumors that Sri Lanka is considered "diet india" so it looks like we are in for some smooth sailing from here on for the next two months before we head on home.

(PHOTOS COMING SHORTLY!)