Finally - Some Computer time

Computer time, internet access and free time to get online, has been unavailable until now - March 4 at 5:20 AM, (your time about March 3 -3:50 PM) I've been trying to keep up in Word but the blog site won;t let me cut-and-paste and right now I'm not even on my own computer, for some reason the hotel clerk wouldn't give me the code to log on but put me at the biz center computer, but let me try to catch up. Right now we're in Cochin (Fort Kochi) on the south east coast. This is an old Portuguese-Dutch community and Jaideep brought us here the other day for some sightseeing prior to going to his school in Rejurla, where we'll head tomorrow.

It took us about 36 hours total travel time to get to Chennai (via Seoul and Mumbai) where we met Jaideep and another pastor, Solomon. We met them at the airport at about 7 AM; we had train tickets out at 9:30 PM that night. We'd all had about 2-3 hours of sleep on the plane so it was a LONG day, trust me. On the Korean Air flight from Seoul to Mumbai the flight attendant offered us a snack - it looked like a triangular brownie so I got one for Jordan and I. It was actually the Korean equivalent of sushi (the brown exterior that caused the brownie deception was sea weed); needless to say I didn't eat it (needless for ME anyway!). At Mumbai we had our first Indian food, a snack of Wada, a potato like, fried roll containing chutney; not too bad. After Jaideep picked us up at the airport we did some sightseeing (we went to the cave where St. Thomas-"Doubting Thomas" was martyred-so they say) and some shopping, mainly to kill time until train time and frankly, I don't remember too much about that day as we were so beat. I actually fell asleep sitting on the floor of the Chennai train station surrounded by thousands of chattering Indians, booming, indecipherable loudspeakers and other train station noises, something I wouldn't' have ordinarily thought possible. It was great to be able to lay down on the train bunk in an air-conditioned car and prone out - and finally get some sleep. It was very cool waking up and watching the country side go by. Kent almost got left behind at one station, he got out to take some pictures and before he got to where he was going, luckily, he turned around 'cause his camera battery was going dead and saw the train starting to move. Ha, that would have been interesting, Kent stuck in India on his own. I would have thought it was funny!
Yesterday we did a lot of sightseeing in Cochin, a town on the south eastern coast, and old Portuguese - Dutch settlement where the first Christian church in India was built, where the Portuguese explorer Vasca de Gama was initially entombed (we saw the place in the church and otehr grave stones dating back about 400-450 years) prior to his remains being removed back to Portugal. This morning the plan was to go see an elephant sanctuary at 7 AM, but evidently this plan has changed - Tim was awake early, too and said Jaideep ahd for some reason changed his mind; we're not going to leave until 9 AM, who knows why? Tomorrow morning we're scheduled to take the train (at 7 AM I think) to Rejurla, Jaideep's school. I also think I heard talk of a 2 hour car ride but hopefully I was hallucinating from lack to sleep re: that bit of info.

Hopefuly once we get to Victor Samuel's in Pithapurum I'll have both more regular 'net access and time to post, some pics as well. Kent has been able to post stuff via his phone so check his Facebook sight as well.

Love from India, more later . . .