More Painters

The painters are still here. These guys are working off a 'scaffold' made of thick hemp rope and tree pole tied like a ladder and thrown off the roof. They climbed by my terrace this morning while I was having coffee.

Now it may be that I've been working on the construction safety isseues at the job site, or maybe I've been indoctrinated by all the Turner Safety classes, but the first thing I noticed was that the guys were both tied off to the same point.

They asked me for water and I tied up a plastic bottle for them so they could carry it with them. They waved goodbye and climbed down to keep painting.

One of them climbed back up and asked if I had any foreign beer that they could try!! LOL!

So, have we talked about the skies in India?

The skies here are so expansive. Somehow even bigger than the sky when I was in the midwest; or maybe the intervening years in the New York canyons made me forget.

But the skies here go on forever and the clouds soar and hang and move with great pomp or enormous rush or just hang there like permanent geography.

No wonder my yoga yogi runs me through a relaxation where he says 'you are floating beTWEEEN the clouds'

File under Whacky Indian Traditions

So walking around one evening I came upon a large crowd outside a Shivite temple in Pondicherry. They had brought out the idols and were blowing horns and beating drums. A huge crowd had gathered.
In the street were 3 sheaves of dried palm fronds. The priests were saying prayers over them and shoving things into the sheaves.
Some one came out of the temple carrying a torch and after a few more prayers, lit the sheaves one by one.
They burst into flame on a very crowded street - with no police or barricades or crowd control of any kind. The stuff stuffed in by the priest turned out to be fireworks and crackers which started popping and zooming.

When it was all done the crowd rushed in to get the ash and make caste marks on their foreheads.

Run Away to Goa

Everybody has been telling me how beautiful the beaches are in Goa and how I have to go and see them. So last weekend, I went.
They are truely some of the nicest stretches of sand and sea in the world. Clean pale sand leading down to blue surf of the Arabian Sea and the stretch is for miles.

Loads of people. In Caligute, the village where I stayed, there were loads of British pensioners, who apparently come every year. I met a great Australian and we wandered around together.


The beach is lined with palm roofed open air restaurants/bars and then the padded wooden beach loungers, and then the hawkers (beads, saris, jewelry, sunglasses) and then the surf.

More Pachyderm

This elephant wasn't dressed for temple, I don't think. She was dressed for tourists in Goa.

If I'd taken the picture from the other side of the street, it probably would have cost me 50 ruppees!

Warning: REPTILE PICTURES

My apologies to Sarah and Terry and anybody else who gets the heebie-jeebies from long reptilian slitherers. Obviously they get me excited as well, only in a very different way.

I've been wanting to meet a snake charmer and over the weekend I finally did!!

The cobra is not so big and I never got up the nerve to touch its hood. He struck the charmer a couple of times, which should have made me feel better about fang removal and mouth stitching, but it didn't really. I was too excited to ask about devenom and mouth stitiching and snake root and things.

He put the python around my neck and called me Lord Shiva, which of course made me smile, even though I don't think Shiva bothers with pythons.

Skip in the record

Oh Blogger is being a pain.

I thought I'd get ahead of myself and write a couple of Blogs ahead and then post them when I was on the fly.

So I did. Only the latest one published BEFORE the previous - 'cause that's when I wrote it.

Sigh.

Anyway, fly down an extra post to see the latest bull.

PS. The guy in front is blowing a conch - symbol of victory!