E-mail Kathryn sent Sunday, October 14, 2001, from Chennai, India

Well!!!

I've been in India for less than 12 hours and I have never felt so emotionally and physically drained. It's a good drained though! We docked in Chennai at 8 am and we got off the ship around 11. My friends Lori, Lauren and I took the eerie walk off our cruisey ship and into an entirely different land than we had ever seen before. It is very hard to explain. We were let through about 5 different gates, each one with armed guards checking our paperwork. We have an incredibly increased armed security force around our ship, mainly because this is our port closest to the recent 'action', if you will. We have been instructed not to travel independantly outside the Chennai area, if we see a large group of people, walk the other way, dress EVEN MORE conservatively than we would anyway, so we are all sweatin in this intense heat in our long sleeves and long pants, and suddenly, when asked where we're from, our entire group has mysteriously been changed into Canadians! It's good to be from the maple leaf land!

We found a great AIR CONDITIONED restaurant that we had heard of that was a part of a Hotel. We were each served a variety of different foods in little bowls and this huge POOF of a bread thing that was completely hollow, all on a banana leaf! I dipped the bread poof in all the different sauces and tried the yogurty/sourcreamy tasting curd. It was SO good! Of course my mouth was on fire 2 seconds into the meal, but I managed to take little cool off breaks where I chugged the 'safe' water I'd lugged along with me from the ship. It was a PERFECT introduction to India and its fantastically unique cuisine!

Lori and I had a THRILL ride to get to this internet place. The main mode of taxi transportation is in these 3 wheeled motor scooter things, and while India isn't known for its organized traffic policies, the thrill was intensified by one less wheel and about a gazillion mph faster than we were expecting. GREAT FUN!

Tomorrow we head to a Dalit Village for 2 days. Dalits are the 'untouchables', the lowest caste in India. I have been looking forward to this trip the most for the past year, so it's strange to think that I'll be experiencing it all tomorrow! I will DEFINETLY clue you all in to all the revealing details of my experience. It is true, as they say, that India changes you. With 4 days still ahead of me, I can't imagine everything I will see, the people I will meet and the food I will bravely taste.