I went into the water all the way yesterday -- awesome. Tre refreshing and I did not get dragged out by the undertow (a few tourists die that way each year).

Yesterday we also saw a too-too funny action/war Hindi movie. Bindi's rickshaw guy took us right to the Trivandrum theater w/o incident . The film-um we thought was playing was not (welcome to India) so we saw what they had, Zameen, about (Muslim) Kasmiri terrorists and the country of Pakistan vs two swaggering hot guys in the Indian army. The hottie without the moustache was married to a stunning air hostess (they had to bring her in so there could be dance sequences) and of course she ends up on the plane the bad guys hijack (BTW it's the same word in Hindi as it is in English). You could tell which was the baddest of the bad guys because he made a little girl cry by twisting the head off her (Caucasian) doll, slapped the air hostess in the face and beat up a spastic. The last was one of the great movie sequences of all time, I think, as you could not tell whether the spastic was acting (he did seem to be when one of his palsied arms suddenly straightened, got really long and smacked the baddest bad guy). At the end the airplane took off from the Pakistani airport at the last minute, while the hotties just barely made it into the helicopter before the Pakistani army blew them away. The had the head terrorist with him, and stuck a grenade in his pocket and threw him out of the chopper; he fell straight down and blew up the Pakistani army guys. Apparently happy endings are unusual, and on the way out of the theater Bindi heard a man (very few women go to movies) say, "American ending." ...For the record -- they have popcorn but it's in little plastic packets. I opted for the cheese balls (a cross between Bugles and Cheetoes, only stinkier), which you get at intermission when suddenly the screen goes white and the lights come on -- never in a place that makes sense.

Most of today was spent inside my room, sleeping and figuring out the CD playa. This is because Lino looked at Y and I this morning and said, "After class, you sleep-a. You don't see the way you look at me. You are jetlagged. Sleep-a." I was, like, "Can we eat first" (it's all about the food) and he said OK.....You don't argue w/ a teacher like him ; he *knows*, and you do. I was exhausted/dizzy and Y was sick last night anyway, after we had dinner at Beatles (yes, that's what it's called and that's what they play, ad nauseum). We ate with an embittered piano- playing Kiwi whose wife just went AWOL. We like him because he gets ripped off worse than we do and spouts amusing stereotypes about Americans and Indians. He was here to do a tour w/ a famous (in some places) Indian-born violinist who got stalked and had to go back home to Austrailia. BTW, did you now that N.Z. was the first country to give women the vote (late 1800's) and that Russell Crowe is a Kiwi, not an Aussie? All I know is he's not for me.


Tonight I got kind of groped on the beach by some boys who asked Bindi and I to take a pic w/ them after we watched the sun go down. The guy standing next to me first brushed one of my cans, then "accidentally" touched my other can (bum). I gave him an earful.


The yoga has been great so far. We practice on the top floor of the Peacock Hotel; there's a flame-colored opaque plastic ceiling, green clay tile floors and wicker wall coverings. It's like being outside, but you're protected from the elements (it's not good to practice out of doors, even if you have a mohawk). It's very loud as the birds are out of their minds, especially the hawks. There are lots of people but we're scheduled (Bindi goes at 5, we go at 7) so it's not a problem to get a spot...more details later