panchajan13kayser: Pancha Kalyone makes it through yet another security check on her way from Mumbai to Bangkok. (Georgia Kayser)

3computersjan13mcc: IARD 602 at work:  (l-r) IARD 602 Professors Ronnie Coffman and Cal Turvey and graduate student Elliot Heffner take the opportunity to catch up on their email in the airport in Coimbatore. (McCandless)

Hairpinjan13: The bus trip down from Coonoor features hairpin turns, and a colorful riot
of vehicles and cargo. Traffic coming up has the right of way. (McCandless)

Monkeyjan13diaz: The monkeys in Coonoor are bold enough to enter our rooms if we leave the
doors open, and savvy enough to line the roadways and wait for travelers to throw the occasional
handout off the bus. (John Diaz)

Sunday, January 13, 2008
Even though our time in India was just enough to taste the culture, but not know it, I feel sad to be leaving. We pack up our bags and make the long descent from Coonoor, the beautiful mountaintop city surrounded by tea plantations. We wind around hairpin turns (so labeled with yellow signs), take pictures of the monkeys lounging in the sun on the side of the road, and squeeze past other buses playing loud Indian music.

After a long drive we arrive at the airport in Coimbatore and board the plane for Mumbai, Georgia successfully navigating her horse through security to arrive triumphantly in Bangkok. The luggage return belt rocks the horse side to side, so he looks like he is prancing happily.

I am amused to reach our buses—Cozy Auto Tours—and see a rickshaw driver taking pictures of our group loading luggage into the bus. We’ve been taking pictures all this time, and now we know how it feels.

I’ve noticed that a good number of the girls on the trip are reading Eat, Pray, Love  by Elizabeth Gilbert. The book follows the author’s journey through Italy, India, and Indonesia. She tells us that she likes to come up with a single word for a city or a person. Her word for Rome is “sex”. We want to think of a word for India. I am not sure what would be best, but I know that it should have something to do with the incredible change, movement, and growth that we feel as we travel.

Mumbai is like a concentrated version of India, so its word would have to be even stronger to capture the crowd of people, the dirt, the smells, and the stark contrast between the poor on the streets and shiny HSBC building rising behind them. Yesterday there was a kite festival, accounting for the more than 17 kites I see being piloted by children on the bus ride from the airport to the hotel. They take any space they can. Several boys are in the middle of the road, occupying a dangerous space between the flow of traffic, and intent on their tiny kite flying on a piece of string high above.

We have another vivid contrast as we walk down a street and then enter the hotel where we will be eating. Outside in lean-tos, people are lighting gas lamps for their meager dinner, and we walk into a lounge and restaurant with a pool, DJ, bar, and lots of food. Over the pool is a kind of deck with some lounging chairs. I imagine it as the set for a James Bond movie, with glamorous people sipping cocktails. Later in the movie, the deck will split down the middle and then fold up and sink into the pool below while a sleek black speedboat/car rises out of the water before the start of a high-speed chase.

After dinner we drive back to the airport and then try to sleep on the plane to Thailand. It leaves Mumbai at 11:30 p.m. and arrives in Bangkok at 5:30 a.m.
Marissa Fessenden, ‘09