Mothballs.

That is what it smells like here. The scent of them is so pungent in our hotel room, Nat and I woke up this morning with mothball breath. That's a first...

As we walked through security at Sea-Tac on Sunday, a guard looked at us, checked our boarding passes and said 'Backpacking in Paris, hey?" (Our first stop was Paris.) I said "No, India" to which he responded ever-so-sweetly: "India?! Ouch. Have fun with THAT. Don't stay in any big hotels!" Some people need sensitivity training.

Our two 10-hour flights were bum-numbing but bearable, thanks to flying Air France and thus feeling like we were in Paris the whole time. With Nat's Euro look and my basic French vocabulary, I think most of the flight attendents actually thought we were French... YES. Merci beacoup.

After an hour at immigration in the Chennai airport, we found Tami in the mob of taxi drivers outside, and she very sweetly got us to our hotel by 3am. We are wandering around the streets near our hotel now, waiting until she gets off work to explore the 'real Chennai'. Tomorrow my friend Matilda arrives here via train (yay!) and the next day we all take off for this place -- www.icmcindia.org -- also via train. Stoked!

People honk their horns here SO much.

Over and out!