Back in Udupi

Well, we finished up our trip to Kolkata with a stomach virus.  Jasmine and I both got it.  She had it worse, but I had it longer.  We were able to make the trip back to Bangalore thanks to medications and first class train tickets.  We ended up spending an extra couple of days in Bangalore, though.  The overnight buses don't have bathrooms and don't have scheduled stops.  So, we got to spend an extra couple of days with our neice, her husband and their 18 months old son.  We had a really nice time with them.  On the day that I thought I was over the bug, we went to a "safari" at a wildlife rescue center.  It was pretty cool.  This place rescues and rehabilitates wild animals and then releases them back into the wild.  We saw lions, tigers (including white tigers), bears, dear, buffalo, and antelope.  They also had a butterfly garden which was really cool.  I generally don't go to zoos because the animals there are often captured in the wild under bad circumstances and sold to zoos for recreational purposes.  I don't want to pay people to do that.  So, whenever we get a chance to visit a wildlife rehabilitation facility we jump on it.  We drove through the park in a shuttle van which was wrapped in protective wires.  When we got to the tiger section they had a double lock gate for security.  We drove in through the first gate which was then shut and locked behind us before the second gate was opened for us to go through.  They can't have tigers wandering into the other areas, so this is part of the safety precautions.  Overall, it was a very nice time.

After having to cancel and change our bus tickets twice, we ended up on an overnight bus again.  This time it wasn't a sleeper though.  It just had nice, comfortable seats that reclined way back.  It was actually much more comfortable than being on the top bunk of the sleeper bus.  I also took some motion sickness meds before we left which pretty much knocked me out so the trip was much quicker than I expected.  I think it was 9 hours. 

So, Jasmine and I are back in Udupi.  Vikas, Vishal and Vilas had to go to Mumbai for a funeral.  One of their uncles passed away while we were in Kolkata so they left yesterday to attend his 13th day ritual.  They had an overnight bus journey, so Vikas has spent a lot of time on buses in the past few days.  They'll leave tomorrow to come back to Udupi.  After that we'll be here until we leave for Rajasthan around the 18th of January.  The weather has cooled off considerably so it's pretty pleasant here now.  I'm not sure what all we'll be doing before we leave again.  I'm working on costuming right now, constructing belts.  That will keep me pretty busy.

Oh, Jamsine has started cooking tomato omelets for herself each day.  For those of you who don't know this yet, the south Indian omelets are made from chickpea flour batter instead of eggs.  Now that Jasmine has learned how to make them she is in the kitchen a couple of times a day asking if she can cook them for herself.  This is a great sign to me.  Soon, she'll be doing a lot of the cooking and Vikas and I will get a break. ;-)