Smile Promiscuity

Indians smile at the drop of a hat.

When i'm on a bus, I just have to smile and waggle my head a little bit, and a group of 5-10 people on the side of the road will all beam at me, shaking their heads as hard as possible.

I got rather used to this, and so i'm experiencing smile withdrawl, if you can believe it...

Tibetians don't smile as easily. I have to target each individual person (i.e. eye contact), nod my head, and make a huge smile... and then maybe one out of 4 people will smile back at me.

Admittedly, there is a pretty significant language barrier, as only a few of the monks speak english... but they are also a lot more reserved than Indians..

They're also a lot bigger - I haven't seen too many skinny monks here- so it appears that they're being fed well.

In any case - it's time to get going. I don't like the paranoia I feel here - constantly keeping my eyes open for the police, and well, given that that it is pretty much only monks here, there isn't a whole lot to do if you're not into the studying buddhism and chanting thing.

Thus, I think i'll be moving on tomorrow... I'll head to Mysore, which is a couple hours east of here.

Oh - and I found a -huge- insect in my room this evening. It looked a bit like a grasshopper, only it was at least 4-5 inches long. And after the lecture I received yesterday on the negative karma I get from killing the mosquitoes that are sucking my blood, I had to shoo it out of the room trying as hard as possible not to do it any damage - all while it lept in the air, semi-flapping its wings, trying to get back to the comfy spot above my bed. Ick Ick Ick.