Oh yeah, this is why we're in south India...

9:30 am, Puthanthope, outside Trivandrum -- What I'd thought were gulls turned out to be crows, hanging around to pick stray fish from the nets the locals are pulling from the sea. They've been at it since first light. I don't know if they'll keep at it all day, but each net requires a few dozen men tugging on both ends to retrieve the loop from where a big wooden dinghy has towed it out. Most of what they end up with are little sardines. There are some squid and some bigger fish. Pomfret. Once they dump the net on the beach and consolidate the bounty, apparently they auction it off to the women who've assembled with tin basins to collect them. But we haven't seen that yet. We went in for breakfast after the haul out. One of the other couples here, some retirees from England, told us about the auction when they came to the dining room. It's not so long into day one, and I'm beginning to appreciate why we're in southern India: I'm writing from a hammock strung between 2 coconut palms in a tropical oasis, and all the wacky, inscrutable mystery and history of India is just outside the gate. On one side, a horde of dark men in dhotis are pulling fish from the sea, and inland, there are a half dozen churches between here and the airport sporting illuminated sculptures out front, of Christian saints in all the colors & accoutrements of the Hindu pantheon.

I'm nodding off. As little sleep as I got last night (and in the past week), there's nowhere I need to be today, and I think I'll catch up on the deficit rather soon. I'm on vacation!!!

So, here we are. Turns out we came up with a few things to do today. We rode a rickshaw into the city to shop for odds and ends and try out a restaurant who's thali lunch had been raved about. We discovered that ATMs dispense rupees as easily here as they dispense dollars at home. We learned that we've chosen a very quiet (except for the crows), idyllic, remote guesthouse to kick off our stay here. We're pretty happy so far.

Damon snoozes as the sun rises over Singapore

The flight out was uneventful. I watched four movies trying to force myself into the Indian time zone sleep pattern, not altogether successfully: Atonement, Michael Clayton, 3:10 to Yuma, and Gone Baby Gone. I started to watch Ratatouille, but it didn't grab my interest before sleep did. The rest of the movies were quite good. Except for Atonement: it had its moments of cinematic grace, and an appealing habit of repeating scenes from differing points of view, but overall, didn't feature very compelling characters or performances, and relied too heavily on typewriter percussion to pound into our heads that "ALL THIS IS BEING WRITTEN DOWN!" Whatever. Dunno what all the fuss is about. But Casey Affleck rocks, and brother Ben crafted a fine complex morality tale in Gone Baby Gone. I nodded off too much during Michael Clayton to make sense of what was driving the decisions the various characters made. I guess it all worked out for Clooney in the end, in that he didn't get blowed up, so we're happy. And the bad guys got busted. There was a lot of extra business about a kid's fantasy book, a failed restaurant, and a gambling habit, that, I guess, established that Clooney likes to play the odds, and Wilkinson's fantasy life is charming and childlike in its innocence. Well played, but all these people are living in some kind of high-stakes fantasy world that doesn't resonate much with my own. 3:10 to Yuma was a hard, cold western, well made, well played, with lots of bad asses, and their classic bad ass moments in the sun. But those characters resonated about as much with me as Michael Clayton's, i.e. not much. But they were both solid entertainments. Is that, maybe, all I need to understand?

Singapore was cloudy, and thus about 20 degrees cooler than expected, but still muggy. We went to Pivdofr restaurant, on which I'd painted a mural eight years ago. Unfortunately, it was in the process of becoming a Korean BBQ. I got pictures of what little of my mural remained. We started to walk toward Little India, but thirst and hunger got the better of me, and we sat for lunch in an A/C sit-down restaurant, rather than delving straight into the questionable street food before we'd even set foot in India. Instead, we spent the rest of the afternoon milling through assorted malls, which, in my view, epitomizes Singapore. Everywhere, there is a mall, and there is a new one on the way. In between are lots of orchids and gardened landscapes.

We flew into Trivandrum at about 9:30 last night. I was struck first by how it differed from flying into Calcutta ten years ago, the last time I came to India. Everywhere, this time, there were little galaxies of light on the ground, and pinpoint trails between them; even the geometric grids of parking lots laid out in light -- in short, everything you'd expect to see flying in to any city at night. Ten years ago, outside Calcutta, there was an occasional bonfire breaking up the black. In Trivandrum, we deplaned onto the tarmac and boarded busses to the terminal. In Calcutta, we'd deplaned onto the tarmac and started a footrace. Both times, we'd had a 20-30 minute taxi ride to our destination. This time, we'd called ahead and had a man waiting, with our names on a sign. Back then, we'd waded through a phalanx of taxi touts, to get picked up by a one-armed man who smoked as he drove. The rides on both occasions were similar, except this time we were heading progressively more rural, down well lit roads. Ten years ago, the roads leading into one of the largest urban agglomerations of the day were unlit at night, and the driver didn't even use his own headlights, preferring the horn instead. I suspect some of the differences are due to the changes in India's finance in the past decade, others due to the differences between north and south here. One thing I do know is, ten years ago, I missed whatever palm lined beaches they have up north.

--Damon