you had to be there?

I have a tendency to laugh a lot. Not just often, but in very long spurts. Sometimes (and I dare say recently up to three times weekly), I am so tired that in addition to finding something funny, I will laugh uncontrollably for far longer than is normal. I would say that this laughter can be infectious, as Sheela and Nick have witnessed most recently. Two nights ago Nick was subjected to me laughing so hard in the middle of the night that I pulled something in my leg. I'm not even kidding - I didn't know it was possible, either. What was I laughing about, you may ask? I provide for you the highlight reel.

The Underwear Guy on the Train to Madurai

Sheela, Ben, Dad and I are all on the train to Madurai, a temple town in Tamil Nadu. We have a very comfortable 2-tier sleeper train compartment all to ourselves. Sheela and I take the bottom bunks, Dad and Ben climb up top, and everyone dozes off. At some point the light in the hall goes off, and the train falls into relative silence, save for the sound of the tracks. However, at various times I hear my dad shouting something in Tamil to someone who keeps walking into out compartment and switching on the light. Due to total confusion and trust that everything is fine, I ignore the situtation. At another point, a rather portly Indian fellow comes into our compartment,places his vesti (a long piece of cotton fabric worn around the waist by Indian men - like primitive pants) on the shelf inbetween the bunks, and leaves. No one really sees him do this since we are all sleeping. As the night goes on, the man turning on the lights keeps returning. My dad explains that he's the conductor, and he's lost his shoes. He sits on the bunk outside in the hall, staring longingly into our compartment, saying that they were new shoes. As this confusion continues, and we are getting nearer to the station, we start wondering why someone's vesti is in our compartment. My dad sort of offers this up to the conductor who lost his shoes, and some other random guy comes in, grabs the vesti, and walks out, leaving a GIANT pair of underwear in his wake, fallen out of the vesti, just laying in the middle of our floor. Moments later, the portly fellow returns, looking for the vesti. We pleaded ignorance, my dad said something to effect of "he shouldn't have left his vesti in here anyway!" and I am staring at the glaring pair of underwear on the floor. Ben sort of points at them, indicating to the man that his underwear is on the floor, but that man doesn't hear him. This elicits my dad to say "I think I've handled that guys dirty underwear enough!"

This was enough to keep me laughing for at least a week. Constantly.

Ben Gets Violently Ill
I realize this shouldn't be funny, but he did it with such grace. The sickness started in the Mumbai airport, as we waited for a flight to Hyderabad. He had been feeling okay, but he ate a candy bar and drank a coke, and for some reason, he soon became possessed by the demon from The Exorcist. By the end of the flight he was looking pretty green. The first sign of sickness came in the airplane bathroom - the second and third waves while GETTING INTO the cab at the airport. By the time we got to the hotel, it was all over. Let's just say Sheela claims his head was almost spinning with the force of the vomiting. The sink was full, the bathtub was full, the toilet was totally full. He threw up on the TV. He threw up in bushes, on the floor. Really, Ben greeted Hyderabad with a stomachful of bile. He claims that it felt like his guts had been liquefied. Sheela does an excellent impression of the noise he made while vomiting. Luckily, Sheela also took a picture of the sink, but it is not for the faint. Ask her if you want to see it.

The Bom Jesus

Once you are faced with the many varied bathrooms of India, many with questionable quality, you start to get used to a word we use called compromise. Nick and I spent a night in Panaji, the capital city of Goa. We pulled into the bus station, and were immediately charmed by the Portuguese architecture and quaint, winding streets. After consulting the trusty Lonely Planet, we headed on over to 31st January Road, where the recommended hotels were located. We passed an AMAZING restaurant (that we later ate at - absolutely beautiful) and saw the recommended hotel. As often the case with LP recommended hotels, there were no available rooms. So, we walk another 100 meters and stop at a doorway with a sign reading Hotel Elite. We go in, they have a room, we sign in, go in, drop off our bags. Now, on first inspection, the room seemed great. A little dingy, but a nice view from the window, a lot of sunlight, and private bathroom. However, it didn't take long for Nick to emerge from the bathroom and proclaim it as "not smelling right". Soon, the smell of the bathroom overtook the entire room. We went on with our day, trying to ignore the smell, deciding what to see in Panaji. Nick notes that a nearby Church features the original "Bom Jesus". "It's not everyday you stay somewhere where you can go see the Bom Jesus and some dead saints" proclaims Nick. This is immediately funny. It only become funnier when I look over at the bathroom and say "Dude, I'm pretty sure the Bom Jesus is in our bathroom. Those pipes are clogged with dead saints." I officially spent the night with a sweatshirt I heavily sprayed with perfume over my head, laughing. Because it was funny or because I had inhaled too much perfume? It's unclear.

Ahh, the smell of Catholicism.