Phase 3

A forty-three hour train ride plus three more hours on two different buses plus bed bugs plus some serious sweating and...! We are in the South of India. Specifically, a small town called Mamallapuram. It's teeny tiny but full of tourists, which I have a feeling will be much more of a common theme in the South.

We thought we would only stay in Mamallapuram for one or two nights, but as things typically go, plans change. It's now day... five? And we'll be here through Christmas. How does one get sucked into such a small and touristy beach town? Easy: Characters. A whole slew of ridiculous characters.

Jack takes the cake of characters. We met Jack the second night we were in town, he was hanging in a hammock at a cafe and we sat down on some cushions next to him. So of course, we start chatting, and, well, Let me just tell you about Kung-fu Jack.

Jack is from New Mexico. He is about ... 45 years old (which we can only deduce from his stories -- he looks 30, maybe 35). He's tall, extremely tan and has a very thick black mustache that curves upward a bit on either side. He attended Stanford University, and then dropped out after a couple of years. He hated Stanford and often visited friends at Berkeley over the weekends, and even hung out at Loth (Juliana's co-op... such a small world, as he is the second person we have met that has lived/partied at Loth) back in the day.

After dropping out of Standford, he attended NYU Film School. I don't really know if he ever got a degree there either -- he said he NYU only likes narrative films, and he just doesn't. So the next obvious step: staring in Kung Fu movies!

He became a kung-fu movie star in Singapore for the next few years, until he had enough money to retire in the Himalayas for fifteen years. Later we find out that by "retire," he meant that he was living in an ashram for some time, and when his guru died, he was appointed the new guru. So among over things, Jack also has thousands of devotees.

He moved down to Mamallapuram a couple of years ago after running out of money, and currently stars in Kollywood films being produced in Tamil Nadu.

This is Kung-fu Jack's life. Notorious in Mamallapuram for walking around in just aviators, mustache and skirt, Jack is quite the show stopper.

Yesterday morning, just as Juliana and I are getting out of bed, we hear a knock on the door. It's Jack. And he asks us if we want to be in extras in a Kollywood film. We'd get paid 1000 Rs, in addition to free food. So although we were planning to leave Mamallapuram that morning, we decide to switch things up, and we say yes.

Our little family in Mamallapuram is growing; last night we shared food and drink at a long table with Indians, Swedes, Brits, Germans, Austrians, and other Americans, laughing about our newly acclaimed movie-star status and then getting thick into some heavy conversation. Joints were passed and the crashing sounds of the Bay of Bengal kept us until 2 am - way past our typical bedtime of 10 o'clock.

This is Phase 3 of our journey. Conveniently, this trip seems to be split up into four phases. Phase 1 was cultural stimulation and feeling overwhelmed and maybe a little lost about the "whys" of me being here. Phase 1 was North India, it was color, and desert and turbans and camels and palaces. Phase 2 was spiritual stimulation. Finding myself within the craziness of it all, acknowledging the constant change of everything - within me and outside of me. Phase 2 blew my fucking mind.

So Phase 3. Beaches. Maybe a little bit more relaxing, maybe staying out a little longer, soaking up the Indian coastline...

Quite a scenery change. It's quite nice.