Monsoon, Soon

The sky got dark yesterday afternoon and suddenly, briefly, it got cooler. The monsoon has allegedly come to Kerala, the state to the west of us, meaning it should be here fairly soon as well. There were some drops of rain, but nothing too dramatic so far. Today it's again somewhere between ridiculous hot and ludicrous hot.

I spent yesterday wandering aimlessly through the city, taking one little alley into the next and shooting a lot of pictures and video. I edited some of it up, but I think I probably won't post it. Everything that I want to record, or that's interesting to me right now, seems like it's probably what everyone gawks at in their first few days of culture shock, but then which becomes normal later on -- the workers balancing piles of rubble on their heads; the street butcher chopping away at a piece of lamb, literally, covered with flies; the massive, colorful, ornate temple in the center of the city that I couldn't go into because I was wearing shorts; the brand new "Ambassador" cars that look like they were designed in the early Fifties. I'm sure I'll get (more) used to all this later on, so it seems silly to present it without context after just a week.