India is nothing like I imagined. I awoke excited at 2 am in London and was never able to fall back asleep. When we arrived in Chennai I was exhausted and exhilarated. We found a cab and I managed to get the front seat, which was a bench seat. Immediately as we ripped through traffic, swerving around anyone and everyone, driving wherever there was space to drive, seemingly ignoring all the traffic lights, I thought, "We are in way over our heads. What the eff were we thinking." We find the bus terminal and the first room we walk into is about the size of a football field and all but about a 20 ft wide aisle to get across the short distance is full of people sleeping on the ground. We find a place to sit and Mike and Mark set out to find out where to buy tickets and what bus we want. They come back about twenty minutes later and the found the ECR Express which takes us to Pondicherry 200 kms away and should be leaving at 7. It's 3 am now. We decide to walk over to the area where the bus we'll be taking will be leaving from and luckily there was one pulling out just at that point in time. We jump on and go to the front of the bus. The four hour ride to Pondicherry is best described as harrowing. No visibility out the windshield, thick dense fog, oncoming buses, rickshaws, motorbikes, and pedestrians. Out the side window are shanties and tent cities and a level and extent of poverty that I had mistakenly thought I was prepared for. But at the same time so much beauty. The amount of people out at the time was insane. We made it to Pondicherry and walked about a km to the city center and went to one hotel. They said, come back at 9. So we went to another and they had no rooms, but were serving breakfast. Ran into two guys from the states and in talking with them discovered that rooms were scarce. So I decide rather than lugging around four people and a bunch of bags that I should down my coffee and go find us a room. So I run around to four or five close hotels and have no luck. Grab a rickshaw driver and say, take me to hotels. He and I rush around town and nowhere has rooms. He says, I know a place that is about 8 km out, but is nice and is right by a swimming beach. The woman takes me to the room she has available and it's about 12 ft by 12 ft with a double cot and a 3" thick pseudo mattress. The walls are a plethora of strange colors, the floor are nursing home white tile, the ceiling fan is frightening, the flickering flourescent light gives the room the ambience of a horror movie flick. Then I notice it. Sitting just inside the bathroom is a regular toilet. We have four of us and need it for four nights, but it's okay, we'll sleep on the floor. She says, 'four people!' And I say, yes but it's okay, how much. 850 ruppees she says. My brilliant math mind quickly realizes that's around $16USD. Okay, I say, we'll take it, I'll be back in 20 minutes. We go pick up the crew. Four of us and all four bags pack into the rickshaw and back to the room we go. In the end the landlord ended up getting us another room for 250 ruppees for the four nights, so our whole stay is just over $20. We decide to walk down and check out the beach, which turns out is amazing. The water is refreshing. We come back to the room and decide to take a nap, which was good since I haven't slept at this point in about 32 hours. That night we catch another rickshaw into town, have a nice tasty meal at a rooftop cafe, spend about 2 hours walking around looking for an internet cafe, then call it a night. So that pretty much concludes day one. By the end of the day I was slightly less overwhelmed and feeling more comfortable with what we are doing. Day two coming soon. - Grant