For your viewing pleasure..

Sundarbans photos! And it only took me 456892127934 years to upload them. I'm missing high-speed cable internet like none other, though I suppose it's a small sacrifice for weekend trips to jungles, and dahl and roti breakfasts every morning.



Quick explanation of the photos..

What are those kids doing? Is that sanitary?

We stopped for about an hour at a town near Khulna to pick up a group of Germans. Pretty soon after we got there, we saw a group of little boys run down to the shore as fast as they could, jump onto their bellies and slide through the muddy sand down into the water. Within five minutes Ashish and Aigars were in the water, swimming to shore to join them. J.R., Charlie, Hayley and Arthur followed suit. You couldn't have paid me to do that.

Why? About 20 minutes after they jumped in, I watched clear yellow liquid being drained from the large ship docked next to them on the beach. That should answer part b of that question. But hey, it looked like it was a ton of fun!

Why don't you have more photos from the jungle?

My camera battery died, and I'm a rather lazy photographer. Sorry! But, to tell you the truth, it was your standard jungle. Not really as "exotic" as you might expect. The most unique experience of the trip itself was the mud walk - and the train ride back. I definitely have never trekked through calf-high mud before! And I've never taken an overnight train in a developing country, so that was definitely interesting. Actually, the train was much more comfortable than I had expected, despite being like 50 years old.

My favorite part of the Sundarbans trip was really being in the ship and in the row boat. It was a very different perspective of Bangladesh and my lungs were grateful for the fresh air.

You were on the boat for July Fourth - how did you celebrate Our Great Day of Independence?

We threw some tea overboard and made the Brits walk the plank.
Actually July 4th was pretty tame. We went out in the row boat for a couple hours, returned to the ship and headed back to Khulna, so we were sailing for most of the time. Basically we drank some Coca-Cola, talked in loud voices and irritated the Germans. All good fun! It was Scottish artist David's birthday on July 4th, so the night before the crew made caramel pudding, stuck some candles in it, and we sang the most known song in the world. David may have thought we were serenading him but we were really singing happy birthday to America.