Ladda Restaurant House & Motorbike For Rent

This little restaurant is right up the road from my bungalow.  There's a little family that runs it~ of course.  There's an older couple, their daughters, and a little boy who looks to be about five.  They run a little convenience grocery store that is adjoined to the restaurant.  Like most restaurants here, they specialize in renting motorbikes.
The older gentleman of the family, I'll call him Grandpa Ladda, does all the cooking.  He wears his blue slippers, has grey hair with a little bald spot on the top of his head, and spectacle like looking glasses.  He wears shirts that I'd like to classify as "Hawaiian" but "Tropical" will suffice.
I've noticed that everything the Thai's make takes about five minutes to prepare.  I also notice that the people working in these restaurants generally seem to chill until someone orders something.  They then pop up and and cook for about three to fives minutes and wham bam!!-------> amazing food!  A delicate mix of sweet, tangy, spicy.  Decorative cucumber always adorns your plate.  I have not had a bad meal here on this island.  Probably because the restaurants here are all family run with grandma and grandpa in the back throwin' it down like they have for the past forty years.
Grandpa Ladda is by far the best.  Perfectly spiced, perfectly seasoned, never bland.  Every order, every dish seems to bore the hell out of him, but man, he knows how to cook.

My Irish neighbor, Pete

is the epitome of a beach bum.  I say this with the utmost love, for he is charming.  Long sandy blond hair that slightly waves and curls.  You know, Sean Penn...  Fast Times At Ridgemont High.
Actually that's exactly what he looks like!!  Sean Penn, but the man.  And keepin' up that surfer style.
He's my bungalow neighbor.  I can hear a radio news show coming from his place at times.  For the relatively brief passing interactions we have, we seem to get in pretty rich conversation.  Our outlook on life.  On travel.  Yoga... yoga philosophy.  But that's travel right, no need for the mundane.

He thinks I've got my head on straight.  I think he's adorable.  

Midnight City

Midnight City  <----click this link to listen.  hell yes!!  shoegaze!!

M83.

I used to love them, and upon hearing them again, I still do.  Isn't amazing when you're teleported back to who you were 8 years ago?  It was me then, but I've changed.  And sometimes you can get back to the exact essence of who you were.  She's still there.  22.  Yes, I am that girl who is listening to her headphones far too loud in painting class. 
And I'm in love.
I could listen and stay here forever.

Beach Cruiser

Sunburnt.
My hands are always sticky.  Mango juice.  Mandarin seeds.  Pineapple juice down my arms.
Sticky handlebars.
I ride past Da and Ball's little restaurant.
Da calls out to me, "Michelle!!"
"I got a bicycle!"  I yell back.
"Yeah!"
I see her waving and laughing.

Conversation with my charming cab driver on the way to Paddington Station.

"Where you going, Love?"
"Bangkok"
"He's letting you go, huh?"
"Yes, I suppose he is."
"Why doesn't he go with ya?"
"Aw.  Because he's going to Brazil."
"So what was that there?  Your goodbye?  You guys are finished?"
"In a sense, I guess we are."
"Headed in opposite directions."
...
"You're going to Bangkok on your own?"
"Yes."
"I'm glad you're not my daughter."
"I just came from India!"
"Well, you just want to see the world don't 'cha?"
"Yes, I do."
"Always keep your wits about 'cha."
"I will, thank you"

NYE

Runs in the stockings.
Blurry gazes.
Thick legs.  Thin legs.  High heels.  Blood shot eyes.
Our hope.  Our hope all balled into one.
In the streets.  On the train.
Saying goodbye.
Saying hello.

Wrote this while waiting for my plane to London. Massive fog in Delhi. Fog like I have never before seen in my life. Plane left about 3 hours late...

Sitting in the Delhi airport.
It already feels like coming back into the Western world.  A store selling luggage.  Reebok.  "Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf"....  You can't even get an authentic Indian chai there.  It's hard to imagine a few days ago the train station in Haridwar.  Freezing.  Huddled with the others waiting for our painfully delayed train.  People putting down newspapers and sleeping on the cold, hard ground.

Varanasi.  Dirt streets.  Dust and smoke.
Leh, that magical moonland, feels like ages ago.  Another time.

....Headed to London.
Doesn't quite feel real.  Doesn't quite feel like I'm headed anywhere in particular.  I've gotten so used to waiting.  Sitting.  Reading and writing.  I could be waiting for a plane.  I could be waiting for a train.  I could be waiting for my coffee...
But I'm leaving India, and I can't believe it.  There have been amazing gifts and jewels, beyond anything I could have ever imagined or asked for.  It's amazing to realize magic still exists in this world.  And I saw it!!  I experienced it! 

thai sky.

Buoyancy

Free flowing, floating in the sea.
Bobbing on her surface like a buoy.  Adrift like a little piece of seaweed.
This sea that has no barriers, no boundaries, no borders.
We identify her different personalities.  Bay, gulf, strait.  It is the same salt water that laps to the North.  Laps to the South.  The same salt water as my tears.  We are a drop in the ocean; one with her tides.
She is the entity that forever embraces this earth.
This embryonic fluid.  This giver of life.
She connects all land.  She connects all of us.
Universal blue.