Hope you all had a Valentines' Day full of lurve. Mine was terribly unromantic, spent on an overnight sleeper bus from Hampi to the holy town of Gokarna. (Thus far, no unholy towns have made it onto our itinerary.) We came here on a detour to see a festival we'd heard about that involves thousands of people chucking bananas at humongous wood chariots careening down the main bazaar in the center of town. We unfortunately learned today that the festival goes on for 8 days and the banana tossing doesn't occur until the 21st, so we're going to have to give it a miss and move on as quickly as we arrived.

In Hampi, I spent a good chunk of time at really shanti place called Goan Corner. [aside: "shanti" is, from what I can surmise, a Hindi word synonymous with peaceful or relaxed. The hordes of Israeli travelers I've met use it liberally when describing chill places that allow their patrons to smoke weed in the open. And then there's "shanti shanti," which means "relax" or "be patient"] The place is owned by a 36 year-old Indian "sublime mama" type (Chris's words) named Sharmila and her second husband Thakur. She dumbfounded us with stories of her success as a business woman in a man's world, and about her family disowning her when she decided to remarry. Women in India do not remarry, even if their first husbands were abusive pricks. She was warm and wonderful and made Hampi feel like home.

Tomorrow we leave for Goa, cheaper internet, and perhaps a clearing of my current writer's block. More then.