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This is one long journey for sure. I got back on the plane in Tokyo and ended up stopping at a few ports of call - Hong Kong for one - but the opportunity to get off and look around didn't present itself - so I didn't. There was a layover in Bangkok and I looked around the airport but kept going to eventually reach Madras, India. Many of the names of cities in India have changed since then but I will use the old ones because that is the time I was there. I arrived in the dark of the night in what will always stand in my memory of what landing on a different planet must be like. There was the feeling of old movie - like really old movies - fans overhead, dark skinned people just staring at you and really old old stuff. The air was like saran wrap covering my skin - it wasn't just hot it - the heat was a presence surrounding everything. I saw a huge bug crawl under the customs bench and was only too tired to scream and jump up on something but that is how I felt. There were things flying around in the air - moths? - that were so big I thought they were birds - but at night? I stumbled through the customs booth and now what? Here I am - in India. There was a sea of dark faces at the glass door out of the terminal and one bearded white guy in the crowd - hmm.

This girl got off the plane at the same time I did - she was from Maylasia - I didn't meet her on the plane - but she looked at me and asked where I was going and why. I said I really didn't know - I was headed for Pondicherry - south of Madras - but this was the closest airport. She was shocked that I didn't know where I was going to stay tonight or what I was doing but offered to share a cab with me and she and her boyfriend (white bearded guy) would take me to a hotel near to their apartment. O.K. I sure as sh*t didn't have a better idea so off we went. Now the first thing I see is bullock carts loaded with straw moving down the street with guys asleep on top - I guess the animals know where they are going - and all the streets that have lights are 40 watt bulbs. It is dark and I mean dark. During the taxi ride Mya fills me in on where I have just landed - and focuses on the one thing I have a phobia about - bugs, bugs and more bugs. She goes on about the flies, the roaches and what all. By now I am beginning to have my doubts but what the hell? I'm here - go for it.

We get to the hotel and it really is an old Bogart movie type of place - the staff is all asleep all over the floor - they jump up at our arrival and try to look as if they haven't been - and go through the registration process. They manage to speak English well enough for me to figure out what they are saying but I have a feeling they don't understand me as well. I ask for a room with no bugs and they have no idea what I mean. I figure out soon enough that it is a useless pursuit but at least I get an English style room - whatever that means. My saviors leave me with a promise to meet for lunch tomorrow and off I go to my room.


These days I can't sleep through the night under the very best of circumstances - yet in those days once my head hit the pillow I was out for the count. I didn't have a clock or watch - so I don't really know what time I woke up - but the racket outside my room was deafening. Crows, crows and more crows.

My first daylight shot of Madras was walking out of my room into a jungle courtyard below. There were more creatures flying and crawling around then I had seen in a zoo. I walked along looking for a dinning room or something. I found this spacious ballroom like place opening out to a lovely view of the tree tops and the location of all of the crows on planet earth. I could see traffic out there but couldn't hear it due to the crow noise. I was offered to sit at a table and figured out toast, jam, and tea was able to be had and happily I was able to communicate this to the server. I sat there in a state of wonder and ate. I couldn't believe that this is where I was. India! Just outside. Cows, goats, bicycles, bullock carts and cars all sharing the same road. And on top of it all the tropical feel of humidity and aroma of a totally different place in the universe.