Courtyard By Marriott Chennai Chennai (Madras)

Alright Sri Lanka part II, So I ended up getting up early and climbing Little Adam's peak and luckily no clouds. It was early so not all that clear and no spectacular sunrise but good all the same. That day we had a long drive from Ella to Sigiriya but boy was it spectacular scenery. Half the day was spent driving through the mountains and a lot of it in tea country where all the hills are covered in tea plants and the odd group of people picking the tea. Definitely my favourite ...

... sweet gentle women who just had a frog in her throat and used tumeric on her skin for hair removal...thats all!! Another girl with whom I had shared a room with was also not what I expected...I had switched rooms to be in a room by myself and I thought she had really taken offence and didn't like me. I was very wrong! After I exlained why I'd moved we had some really lovely chats and at the end she gave me a big hug and said she was really going to miss me!! I guess it just ...

... core off the floor of my classroom and carried it to a trash can. Someone had eaten an apple and discarded the core - it lay shriveled and ignored in the aisle. Many students had noticed it (they admitted as much). But this is uncommon. It is unusual to discover that someone has left garbage on the floor of a classroom. When I take my children to the beach near my house, we regularly pick up some trash ...

... a drenching. The paths became rivers that we had to wade through, and when I eventually found another temple to shelter in - we'd also walked the wrong way, going deeper into the complex rather than away from it - it had no roof! It was to the amusement of the local shopkeepers that we trudged back to the guesthouse in our 'drowned rat' state when we eventually found our way out. I'm a little nervous about flying. Well in fact I'm always nervous ...

... and that naturally forces the cars with the right of way to move over. At other times a vehicle is shifting lanes to avoid something slower such as a bicycle or cow, or they're going around a stopped bus. Above all of this is the sound of horns. Stores sell special horns that produce a unique sound. When you are in traffic you can hear horns of all varieties. Some cities and towns have ordinances against horn blowing. The rich neighborhoods in particular attempt to do this ...

... fade much in muggy, ill-ventilated concrete hotel rooms... Last night must have been one of the most miserable nights on record. As I lay frustrated and cursing in bed in the middle of the night, I checked the temperature. Just above 90 degrees. Again, the presence of the mosquitoes burdens me greatly. And these mosquitoes are the Godzilla of mosquitoes. Damn near the size of giant flies to small birds. I am covered partially with Deet insect ...

... strongly about that, because most rickshaw drivers in Chennai are ********s. So we countered with 100 rupees. We eventually settled on an exorbitant price of 150 rupees. It's only about $3 USD, but it's more about the principle of the matter. So John, Matt and Jane pile in the back and I scrunched into the front, sharing a seat with the driver. The drive took a lot longer than we thought it would. Along the way, John beat boxed some Hindi beats, while Jane ...

... tomorrow we're getting out assignment for our next project, which is basically a design your own project with our big block of wood. He told us yesterday that we are going to be grading ourselves at the end, so I'm all set grade wise with this class, and its really fun too! Global Studies is going well, I started talking about this, I have an A in the class so far, because its just an average of the four tests we'll have taken, and I have an A average so far, and I go to class everyday ...

... gorgeous complex that we have sriven by before, so it was fun to get to go there. There were stones with carvings in them from waaay back when, of Tamil and sanskrit, and all these ancient languages. Then there was a zoology section with preserved animals, and skeletons. The coolest things were the elephant skeletons and the whale skeleton. He was massive! There were also bronze sculptures of gods and goddesses, and art as well. All of it was ...

... sitting on this rock in the breeze looking out over the blue sea. After ten minutes he said "OK, time to go now" and asked us to get up. We declined his offer, saying just how comfortable we were. Twenty minutes later he began to sweat profusely and started to ask us to move on every few minutes or so "Many more temples to see, quickly let's move". Down below we could see other foreigners making their way around the rock carvings - alone. Another half an hour passed and ...