Riding The Rails.

The moment I left Varkala and boarded the Kanyakumari Express, I knew it would take some time to get used to being on my own again. I made some great connections on the cliffs of that beach, connections that don't come nearly often enough. It ended off amusingly when I made out a muffled yell through the screeching brakes of my train that I was about to board. It was my drunk waiter from the restaurant I frequented nightly. He was the world's best waiter only because he was so bad at his job it was gut wrenchingly hilarious.  He was standing with a group of his friends behind a fence, I couldn't hear a word he said but he had a smile on his face and was waving, I was doing the same.

You come to Tamil Nadu for 2 things; to see temples and sweat profusely. As I awoke that morning on the Cape of India, it didn't take long to get back into the swing of things photography wise. I'm not sure how many times I hit the shutter release button that day, but I do know that I snapped some of my favourite images to date.

The city of Madurai (one of the oldest in South India) was the main reason I came into Tamil Nadu. A 1000 year old temple decorated with hundreds of Hindu deities - smacked dab in the middle of a bustling city. This was near the top of my "to visit" list for India and it didn't disappoint in the least. I can't even begin to wrap my brain around the Hindu faith and all it's complexities. Seeing them pray in one of their holiest of temples, being immersed in all the energy everyone was giving off, gave me one of those tingly feelings.

The kind of feeling where a sudden wave of energy flows through out your entire body and an involuntary smirk adorns your face.

The kind of feeling that you can't wait to have again and that you almost crave, like an addict chasing his next fix.

But you can't buy this feeling like you can a drug, you simply have to do your best and not give in to the downs involved in getting to that particular point and time. All the stress, anxiety, and loneliness that you sometimes experience being away from your friends and family all seems to fade away when you have one of these moments.

I've rushed through the oven that is Tamil Nadu and have almost reached Chennai. I rode the rails like it's going out of style this past week hitting Kanyakumari, Rameswarem, Pondicherry, Madurai, and Mahabalipuram all in a span of 7 days. From Chennai I'll board a flight back to Goa; a state that I didn't give a fair chance to at the start of my trip.

I do suppose that there's worse places in the world to 'give another chance ' than the beaches of Goa, but let's not forget this is suppose to be a vacation.

"Since I'm already here, I may as well check it out"

It's something everyone says while traveling, you've come this far geographically so it wouldn't make sense not to go the extra step and check that place out. I've been saying this to myself often lately, but for me 'here' is not a place on a map as much as it is a state of mind.

I've done the hardest part, been through the roller coaster of emotions that's involved with dropping everything and flying to a far off place. The state I'm at mentally at this point in my trip...that's 'here'.

'Here' is a place where I understand the shear scale of the freedom I currently have at my disposal.

'Here' is a place where my confidence and sense of adventure is as high as it's ever been.

I'm aware that I can (and will) go where ever the hell I want tomorrow, and nothing aside from weather or civil unrest will stop me. No destination on a map scares me, no arrival time at a seedy train station with no place to sleep frightens me in the least.

When you have freedom and the courage to use it, this is when vacations turn into adventures. It's not just the destinations on the map you're getting excited for anymore, it's the journey to that destination and all the crazy stuff that will happen along the way that you really crave.

I've visited 10 cities in 35 days, I have a couple more to go and then I will start moving North for the first time, up through Tamil Nadu then on to who knows where. I'm going on 5 days here in Varkala, the longest which I've stayed anywhere thus far. The cheap seafood, spectacular view, and awesome people I've met have given me a chance to settle down and relax for a bit. Beer consumption has sky rocketed though, but it's well deserved.

The State of Kerala has floored me, I find it difficult to believe that everything I've seen this past 2 weeks has been all located in one small region of the country. Beautiful beaches, mazes of back waters, colonial port cities that look to be stuck in time and tea plantations over 2 kilometers above sea level. They got it all here and I'm finding it a bit hard to leave. But one month is down in my history books and my Visa does have an expiry date, so if I want to make all the other dreams in my travel mind come true I have to keep on moving.

I am already 'here' of course....so it wouldn't make much sense to stop now :)