Unpacked

And just like that, phase 3 is over.

I unpacked my bag. Decorated my new room. Watched episodes of The Office online. I feel exhausted and very pleased to be in one city for the next month.

I'm back in Pondicherry. This city is so calm (by Indian standards); it's a great place to be settled. The house we're living in is pretty sweet. Two stories, with a big open room for sitting, 24/7 internet and skype access, a rooftop, cute wicker furniture, a kitchen... unlimited purified water! The best part is definitely being in an Indian neighborhood. No tourists. There are no hotels or guesthouses around, and there is no way I would have found a house like this if I were only staying a few days.

So where did I last leave off... ah, Goa. Seems so long ago. Like this blurry dream. Or maybe I was just in my own blurry haze...

Either way, I'm glad we decided one week of dancing with Russian tourists to psytrance was enough.

We took an overnight bus to Hampi from Goa. Juliana and I have definitely become accustomed to being in some seriously uncomfortable sleeping situations and not complaining... but you should have seen this bus. It was a "sleeper" bus... so of course, the photos any tour operator shows you are pictures of an actual bed in the bus. Obviously, one cannot take this seriously. The "bed" that Juliana and I shared was tiny. The two of us fit, like sardines. Perhaps a blessing in disguise, as the bus was freezing and I had only one sheet. So, we spooned.

Hampi is one of the coolest towns I've ever visited. It's in the state of Karnataka, which hasn't been hit by massive tourism - yet - and has this desert-like quality of Rajasthan... without the camels. It has a colorful bazaar within the town, but the once powerful Hindu empire it once was stretches on for miles in each direction, scattered with abandoned temples and boulders. Massive boulders. Beautiful, stacked boulders that make you think perhaps a giant piled rocks on top of each other to remember its hiking path.

Hampi was also the prime of Juliana and my silliness. Juliana and I laugh, a lot. It's one of the best parts about traveling together. We have a very similar humor and I think, more often than not, we laugh a little too hard. To the point that we're crying from laughter and people are looking at us like... what is really that funny? But we can't help it.

Sometime during the first month of travel, J & I talked about the potentially problematic situation of spending too much time together : we have no censor. No one from the outside world to tell you when we are getting too silly, when maybe we're being too ridiculous. Maybe you should buy that really big statue of Ganesh. Maybe you don't need to shower. From the start, I think we knew this point would come in our travels. Well... it happened in Hampi.

We found a guesthouse, set down our bags and headed to the rooftop cafe to fill in the necessary paperwork... which is when we met Simon. The enabler of our silliness. Simon is just as silly as we are. And he's British... which is, perhaps, the same thing as silly.

Simon laughed as we filled out the "police identification" section of the guesthouse's paperwork. We decided the best way for the Hampi police to identify me was "very sunburnt," and Juliana -- "safari shirt." This began our conversation about hat-wear and sun protection... which concluded with: Anna needs a hat.

By the way, the sunburn is not my fault. I was part of a sunscreen scam. I bought faulty sunscreen in Goa. SPF 50! I was trying! I lathered up and was not in the sun for more than a few hours... but... I'm pretty sure I just lathered up with just lotion. And I turned into a tomato.

So anyways... back to Hampi. We decided to get me a hat. There were a few shops in the main bazaar selling lots of hats, most not fitting my XL head. One, however, fit perfectly. It was a wide-brimmed straw hat with glittery lace at the edge. It was ridiculous. It IS ridiculous. But Juliana and Simon convinced me that it was ridiculous in this kind of fabulous way. And that I looked like I should be drinking sweet lemon tea and knitting while I wore it. And that IF this hat had a personality, it's name would be Maude.

Naturally, Juliana's hat needed a name. We decided on Gil. Gil subtlety disapproves of almost everything Maude does. If he had a celebrity look-a-like, it'd be Indiana Jones. Quite a duo, these two.

Thus evolved the beginning of the silliest four days yet. The three of us laughed about everything from Maude and Gil's adventures to our million-dollar idea of cat-shaped Cat-carrying boxes to tales of Dancing Shiva stepping on dwarves to Simon's custom-made Death costume. I don't think we stopped laughing for four days straight. Actually, that's a complete lie, but when we did stop laughing it was often for moments of ... Where are we? We spent our days exploring boulders and temples on foot and bike, constantly caught off-guard with these vast panoramic landscapes straight out of Land Before Time, or Jurassic Park, or The Flintstones. I think you get the idea.

I think I could've lingered in Hampi for quite some time.

We got on a train at 8 pm. Got off at 7 am. Got on a bus at 8 am. Got off the bus at 5 pm. Got on another bus at 7 pm. Arrived in Pondicherry at 11 pm.

This volunteering business is going to be challenging. Mostly because it'll be about self-motivation. This organization, Prime Trust, does not yet have an environmental branch, and I'm supposed to ... do that. Build some sort of foundation, or something? I'm pretty much in the dark here, but no one said an under-funded, somewhat disorganized NGO in India would be smooth-running.

We had some moments of wondering whether 3-4 weeks would really do anything here... if we could actually accomplish anything, or help anyone. And, we're paying for this opportunity. Paying to volunteer. It's a tricky subject, because one could see it as a mandatory donation to a worthy cause... or, wonder, why do I need to pay to volunteer? Especially on my budget. I'm getting a little nervous about whether or not I'll have enough money to last me through April 17th, so every rupee counts.

J & I went back and forth many times about whether or not we should stay here. But there was this one voice in my head, that persisted, no matter how many times I questioned if volunteering for this NGO was worth it. It was the voice of that shaman from Burning Man, who looked me straight in the eyes. Straight into my soul. He touched my forehead with his index finger, and said, "You need to stop thinking with this..." He moved his finger to my heart. "And start thinking with this."

So we're staying. I know this is going to be a really good experience. It feels much more like living in India rather than just traveling through it. Today Juliana and I did some domestic shopping. We bought groceries, toiletries... and... wait for it... INDIAN OUTFITS! Once again, no censor.

check out Prime Trust: www.primetrust.org