Cliff Notes

To help make sense of the blog backlog, here is a summary of where I've been since New Year's. Like the US, India is divided into states, so I have included state names to help sort out the geography a bit. My itinerary hasn't made much sense geographically speaking. I have been up and down the southwestern coast of India a couple of times. Fortunately, the Konkan railway is incredibly scenic. I am quite content watching the beautiful land and water and people roll by as I sit in the doorway of a train.

December 30 - January 2: visited Aranmula (where VKV, the cultural centre, is located, in the state of Kerala), celebrated New Year's Eve with friends

Jan 2-4: visited Varkala (very touristy beach town, also in Kerala) with VKV friends, see this post

Jan 4-12: visited Amritapuri, Amma's ashram (Kerala), see this post

Jan 12-15: returned to Aranmula for a concert performed by my friends Tony, Leah, Lucy & Claire as well as local musicians/teachers from VKV; took a few days off to work on my grad school applications, ship a package back to the US, go for a long walk/hike with Martin, and do some of the other things in the area that I had wanted to do while studying at VKV but was always too busy to do....

Jan 16-18: visited Gokarna with friends I made while staying at Amma's ashram, Gokarna is this fantastic little beach town. For now it is still like other little towns in India, but you can see the signs of change and feel how quickly more change will happen. Instead of staying in the town, we hiked over an inactive volcano to a more remote beach (with no vehicle access) and rented little palm thatch huts with hard-packed dirt floors. (In the state of Karnataka)

Jan 19-31: went to Arambol with my ashram friends, stayed at Vrindavan's house (he's lived in India for about eight years and in Arambol for the last few, in India's tiniest state, Goa)

Feb 1: visited the giant Shiva statue in Murdeshwar (Karnataka)

Feb 2: visited approximately 108 temples in Udupi (Karnataka)

Feb 3: met my friend Martin (from VKV... well, he's from Sweden, but we met at VKV) in Ernakulam (back in Kerala)

Feb 3-6: Ernakulam and Fort Cochin (Kerala)

Feb 6-8: Kozhikode (aka Calicut, in Kerala)

Feb 8-11: Kasaragode & mystery backwater location (Kerala)

Feb 12-18: Mumbai & Thane (suburb of Mumbai, in the state of Maharastra)

Feb 18-20: Nasik & Trimbak (Maharastra)

Feb 21-present: Vadodara (state of Gujurat)