The Kirk is last stop in Chennai

As we approach the end of our time in Chennai, Cintra and I joined Mathias in attending Sunday worship in St. Andrew's Kirk. As the name suggests, this church was formerly part of the Scottish Presbyterian Church. It is now part of the Church of South India.

There are a few Protestant English churches in Chennai, but The Kirk is likely the largest and most impressive in appearance. It is a prominent landmark with its huge white structure, towering steeple and single spire and large, well-treed yard.

Inside the church is an ornate sanctuary with "pews" in a semi-circle. It is a large space, but at today's service there were dozens of people seated outside following the service on two large wide monitors.

The name and the prominence of the church reminded me of another church by the identical name and an even more prominent location in St. George's Grenada, which sadly was flattened in a hurricane.

The service was our last outing in Chennai as we are now preparing to fly to Sri Lanka for the second leg of our vacation. Our time here was successful in so many ways. Not the least of our blessings was our adjustment to the time change, the hot weather, the spicy foods, the bizarre city traffic and the cultural differences.

The most notable blessing we have enjoyed is our good health, given the factors we need to be constantly aware of in India, particularly during the first week for a visitor.

Cintra adds:

"It will be sad to say goodbye to Mathias, Sujatha, and family. It has been a wonderful time sightseeing and eating new foods (chats or snacks) and a variety of vegetarian meals. Of course I cannot forget the few times I also went shopping. One evening we visited Kumaran silk shops which is an Indian fashion store with four levels of saris. The staff were so welcoming and looked after your every needs. The colors and combination of colors were so different from the usual shops I frequent in Regina.

Another afternoon we went to Spencer's Plaza which again had many levels and wings of shops in each level. Lots of elephants giftware and carvings than I have ever seen in my life! It was quite a feat that I never purchased a single one! I tried on many beautiful pieces of gold jewelry and again did not buy any.

I keep reminding myself of our very limited weight we have....7kg carry on and 15kg checked in. This forced us to pack very smartly for 7 weeks and of course cannot carry much back.

I bought a lovely sari and had to get the blouse made. I got a cute shalwar for my granddaughter Sage and one for friend's granddaughter, usual T-shirts , and Moses keeps looking at the electronics and showing up with different gadgets."

We are unsure about access to the Internet while we are in Sri Lanka, so our next blog may be several days or more.

Thank you for following our travels through this blog.

Final resting place for an Apostle

As we drew closer to the end of our visit to Chennai, Cintra, Sujatha, Mathias and I visited sites in the area that honour St. Thomas one of 12 Apostles of Jesus Christ. He was one of the witnesses of Christ's death and resurrection.

San Thome Cathedral Basilica is one of three Basilicas around the world built to honour Apostles. This Basilica in Santhome, Chennai, is built over the tomb of St. Thomas, who brought Christianity to India in 52 AD.

The other two are St. Paul's tomb in Rome and St. James' in Spain.

St. Thomas spent 17 years traveling extensively in Sind, Kerala and his final home in Mylapore. He is said to have been martyred as he prayed in a place called Little Mount. His body was moved and enshrined under the Cathedral Basilica.

The other historic site, St. Thomas Mount, high above Chennai, once served as a lighthouse for Armenian and Portuguese ships and vessels in the 16th and 17th centuries. Today it attracts pilgrims of all faiths who engage in silent meditation and prayer in the Shrine Chapel or the Adoration Chapel.

Pilgrims are said to endure the climb as signs of penance and as sacrifice. The mount also features the Stages of the Cross in intricate detail, relics of bone fragments of St. Thomas and numerous other saints, a bell tower, open air stage for worship and viewing spaces to see the city.

Our visits to the Mount and the Cathedral were spiritual experiences that seemed fitting for our short time in this city.

Perhaps just was as fitting, if not uncanny, was the sudden crash of thunder, bolts of lightening and heavy persistent down pour of thunder showers after a week of blazing sunshine and intense heat and humidity.

Enjoying more of Chennai's attractions

It is now about a week since we have been in India, and we can't believe how many rich and lasting memories we have already accumulated. Thankfully, these notes will remind us of the experiences and images of this place for a long time. And we hope they have helped in some small way to make you a part of our colorful journey.

There will remain some images and memories that will rise above others from time to time. In the case of our time here in the city of Chennai, formerly Madras, the watching and being part of the traffic mayhem seems to dominate other experiences.

As we slowed down our pace a little, we took a hired taxi to visit some of the nearby attractions. Each of these sites was to take half hour or so for a visit. As it turned out, it took about two and a half hours to go about 30 km for a 20-minute to a visit to Valluvar Kotam, a permanent display of poems by Thiruvalluvar, a prominent Tamil poet and thinker from the year 2 AD.

In the course of the drive, we were caught in traffic chaos that cannot be described, much of which I had already shared in earlier blogs. That experience repeated itself when we went next to the Government Museum and again to the Science and Technology Centre and Planetarium. Cintra describes it as taking our lives in our hands.

As I peered dazed and bewildered through the window of the little Tata taxi, here are some images I caught with my iPod.

That is not to take away from the great importance of the immortal ethical lessons in poetry by Valluvar. Of course, they were all written in Tamil, but Mathias Ross, our host, gave an overview of some of what the poet said. Just being a witness to these historical treasures is gratifying.

The poems are the Tirukallukal and are his most revered works consisting of 133 chapters each written in 10 Tamil rhyming couplets for a total of 1330 "kurals" or short verses.

Valluvar Kotem is one of the most significant monuments celebrating Tamil culture in India and was built with 3,000 blocks of stone, stands 101 feet tall, shaped like a chariot and includes a massive auditorium that could accommodate 4,000.

Having had a fleeting glimpse of this gem of Tamil culture, we braved the traffic delirium to see the Government Museum Chennai, which consists of displays of botany, zoology, numismatics, anthropology, etc. This did not turn out too well for the effort it took to get there. They don't allow hand bags and there was no place to store Cintra's purse. So we took turns to see a few zoological displays and then left.

Next we hurried to the Periyar Centre of Science and Technology and the Bria Planetarium to catch the next scheduled half-hour show. The Centre is named after Periyar Ramaswamy, a major Indian historical figure.

We witnessed some scientific displays at the "science centre," including one about nuclear energy. It attempted to make a case to justify India's reliance on nuclear power. The planetarium show was the typical overview of astronomy.

Both the museum and planetarium were not of the standards of similar displays we have seen elsewhere.

All of these sites were interesting and valuable in their own way, but were limited in visual impact, especially outdoor landscaping and visitor hospitality and amenities.

Later in the day, we took in some other interesting and historic sites closer to the seashore. They included the Chennai lighthouse and museum. Along the major thoroughfare where the lighthouse is located are office buildings, university, cultural centre, police headquarters and other opulent structures.

Across from these buildings is the beach which reaches out the length of a couple of city blocks to the water. This beach is popular for strolling and fishing and a busy market of shacks and vendors with every conceivable Indian snack.

The beach is big, but definitely not clean or pretty. The vendors' shacks are an eyesore and the beach is full of litter.

One one end of the beach are two stately memorials for past political leaders of the State. There are several other beautiful buildings that are part of the park. However, they are all untidy.

Looking from the top of the lighthouse, one could see a complex of slum apartment buildings that are weather-beaten and in utter disrepair. Many of these are due to the effects of the tsunami and human neglect. Next to these buildings on the beach are equally unsightly shacks. A few yards down are some upscale apartment buildings -- an odd contrast viewing them from the lighthouse.

One of the most common sights in the area, as it is all over the city and the State, are monster size portraits of the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. The irony is that on this day, she was expected to visit the area where she would be greeted by even more pictures of herself. The CM's visit also meant heightened security everywhere.

We left the beach area at dusk as the street lights were slowly getting brighter and throngs were expected to fill the beach to linger, buy food and drinks and enjoy the gentle sea breeze on another fiery hot day.

We still have a bit more to see in Chennai and area before we leave for Sri Lanka. Please come back for more updates in a couple of days.

More stone monuments, crocodiles and Indian art

After two days of hectic sightseeing and struggling with the heat in South India, we decided to leave our final half day to slow down the pace and catch up on one remaining visit in Mahabalipuram and another on the way to Chennai.

Cintra and I began our morning with a walk to the beach close to the residence. We had seen the Indian ocean and now we would step into it for the first time. It was a most pleasant experience and the beach was almost totally vacant and clean. It was far too deep and dangerous for swimming, so we enjoyed walking and taking pictures.

We drove into town and had breakfast and then dropped Arul and Sel at the bus station so they could return to Chennai to work.

With another beautiful sunny morning, we decided to return to Mahabalipuram on the Bay of Bengal, to view the stone monuments. As we entered the site, I was amazed at a huge monument with detailed carvings of a variety of images from Hindu mythology.

Soon we found another and another with mind boggling carving in the rocks of similar images and stories. These monuments, like the Shore Temple and a Five Rathas, were built in the 7th and 8th centuries by the Pallava kings. These made for a most memorable adventure.

We ended up, not by design, in a lighthouse museum. An old lighthouse is the centre piece of this stone park and the museum displayed rare examples of lamps and other gadgets and equipment used in Indian lighthouses.

Mahabalipuram is also well-known for exquisite granite sculptures of Indian deities. Many Indian villages have street side merchants of these intricately carved pieces of everything from pocket size to sculptures of more than a ton, all using the Pallava styles.

The heat was beginning to get to Cintra and me, so we joined Mathias and Sujatha and the driver on a return journey to Chennai. The one major attraction that was left on the return journey was a crocodile park, more accurately known as the Madras Bank Trust and Centre for Herptology.

Normally, I would avoid sites like this as a tourist trap. But so far nothing in India felt like displays simply to lure unsuspecting travelers. I did enter the park with some skepticism and inside was awed by the collection of live crocodiles, alligators, caimans, along with an assortment of snakes, turtles and birds.

The park covers over eight acres and includes 2400 crocodiles. Inside the park we wandered from enclosure to enclosure admiring the many kinds of crocodiles. They mostly were lying motionless like statues in the sun or fully or partly in the water.

Then once in a while one would stir or move a few feet. After it began to feel like more of the same, a young man who seemed to be a worker on the site commented that we were missing the star of the collection. His comment caught our attention and before we knew it, we had the most interesting and informative guided tour of the displays that we could every imagine. This became one of the highlights of our trip so far.

We ended our visit and moved on until it was time for lunch. We stopped at Sangeetha's once more and then returned to Chennai. As we arrived in the city we made a short stop at the Cholamandal Artists Village, which includes an art gallery and a commune of 30 resident artists. This is the largest artist commune in India and reputed to include some of the best post war art in India.

Our timing would not allow us to see the artists at work, so that may be done another day.

It was again time to maneuver through the famous Indian city traffic as we made our way home.

We hope to spend the remaining days in Chennai taking in some other local attractions. Stay tuned and feel free to share with family members and friends.

Major attractions in a little known Indian state

We are glad that you have taken the time to follow our trip to India through this blog. We hope you find it interesting and informative and encourage you to share it with others who may be interested.

It is clear that we can only give impressions about small slices of this huge, diverse country. Given the short time we are here and the brief glimpses we have of the country and its people, we admit much of what we report may be incomplete and perhaps inaccurate.

It is not as easy as I had hoped to find the time to blog and it is also difficult to find convenient places with internet access.

We are finding the rich spices are a bit much on the system and also that the extreme heat is slowing us down and limiting our ability to do and see everything we wanted.

Pondicherry is as good an example as any. This is a small but beautiful state in southern India where one should spend at least weeks to explore fully. We found in the few hours of our visit, we could see and experience just a few things in this blistering heat.

The first thing that struck me was the multitude of motorcycles. Almost every adult of any age was on a two wheeler of some sort. There is no limit to the number of passengers, or what they would carry on a motorbike.

One of the most interesting places in Pondy, as it is called, is the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. This is a huge complex, occupying several city blocks. Whereas one might expect an ashram, a place of meditation, to be in a remote countryside location or mountain top, this is in the heart of a bustling city. This gives it an air of activity and energy and accessibility.

To enter as a visitor, you first remove your shoes in a stand across the street from the entrance and then cross the street on a carpet into the building. In the building, you are immediately warned to be silent and take no pictures. So my description has to be purely in words.

The first area consists of a large, marble table called the samadhi of Aurobindo ( the resting place of the Mother) covered in beautifully decorated flowers, and around which people are bent over, head pressed against the edge of the table, in silent meditation.

Around the building are photos and quotes from the community's spiritual leaders, the founder himself, Sri Aurobindo, and his collaborator and an equally prominent teacher and spiritual guide called The Mother.

The ashram consists of other areas with a variety of activities including crafts, information room, perfumes, dispensary and many others in several buildings.

Time did not allow us to see most of the ashram so we moved on to see other things in the city. Pondy used to be occupied by the French, so there is a distinct French influence in the state. We could see it in the buildings and the street signs and decor, but we did not stay long enough to see how it influences the lifestyles of the residents.

The city lies on the southern coast and is in a spectacular location. The shore is lined with rocks and there is no beach. At the heart of the street along the shore is a larger than life statue of Mahatma Gandhi. He is shown standing on a an architecturally exquisite riser. Sadly, the scene is spoiled by young men rollerblading on the curved slopes of the structure. The beautiful coast is also covered in garbage.

The other highlight of this state for us was a visit to Auroville. Again I encourage you to read up about this and other places we visit to get fuller and more accurate details. However, Auroville is a commune of sorts, where people from dozens of countries make up this community and endeavor to live together in total self-sufficiently.

They seem to be guided by the teachings and principles of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. Visitors are not allowed to see these residents at work or observe how they live. What we are exposed to are some general information sites and a video presentation.

Auroville sits on literally hundreds of acres of land not far from the capital city. Much of this land is intended for communal agriculture and other uses. However, the most interesting feature of Auroville is that about 400 acres are set aside for a multimillion (billion?) dollar project called the Matrimandir.

I could take pages and pages and many blogs to describe this, so I won't. It is the centerpiece of Auroville and is basically a huge "golden" dome. Its engineering and esthetic qualities far exceed any dome I have seen such as the geodesic dome at Expo in Montreal or Ontario Place. Visitors could see it from quite some distance away but not allowed to enter it at this time.

This image will stick in my mind for a long time when I witness the poverty and squalor in other parts of this country.

All in all we have enjoyed Pondy and are looking forward to seeing more of Tamil Nadu in the coming days. Please come to visit this site.

Mahabalipuram records its rich heritage in stone

Cintra and I are pleased to share with you our continuing journey through southern India. We took our first trip outside Chennai to enjoy some historical and cultural sites along the east coast.

Our group involved the entire Ross family of Mathias and Sujatha and their adult sons Arul and Selwan. We enjoyed the comfort and convenience of a Toyota Innova mini-van and a hired driver.

It was clear the driver had the experience, patience and skill in escorting tourists, handling the sometimes heavy weekend traffic and getting through obstacles such as unusual barriers to slow down speeding traffic or making way for wandering cows.

Not surprisingly, it was a ghastly hot day, something we were reminded of each time we had to get out of the vehicle.

Our first major stop was at a museum outside Mahabalipuram where we were introduced to the history and culture of the people of south India. Next we had a vegetarian lunch at Sangeetha's restaurant with its much welcomed AC and tasty food. We then visited the marina and took in a short boat ride along the coast.

Tired and hot, we located our accommodation for the next two days. The Ross's arranged for us to stay at a beautiful religious retreat centre in Mahabalipuram.

This community is well-known as the home of World Heritage sites such as Shore Temple and the Five Radhas. Thousands of visitors trek to these significant sites and while here enjoy other attractions such as the beach and the Shell Museum.

Shore Temple is one of seven original temples built on the coast hundreds of years ago. Six of them were eroded and virtually erased from sight due to wind, water and the Tsunami and there remains a pair of weather beaten but spectacular stone temples. This is clearly a reminder of the intense faith of Hindus over thousands of years and the pride and ingenuity of the Tamil residents.

Nearby is another world Heritage monument of The Five Radhas. These majestic stone structures, depicting five chariots of five kings, have been effectively worn down by the strong winds and salt water to a fraction of their sizes when they were built hundreds of years ago.

The Shell Museum appears to be a typical tourist attraction but is actually one of the most fascinating displays one ever see. It features some 40,000 different varieties of sea shells. These were part of a personal collection by Raja Mohamed and now is a source of enjoyment as well as education for visitors to Mahabalipuran or Mamallapuram as it is also called.

None of these interesting and beautiful visitor attractions seems to be compromised by crass commercialism as we see in other tourist spots around the world. In the village itself, one has to resist the persistent hawkers and sellers of trinkets and jewelry. But more interesting are the admission fees to the two heritage sites. If you are an Indian citizen, you get to pay 10 rupees, but the signs outside the entrances are clear that outsiders pay 250 Rs.

We have enjoyed several beautiful meals on this trip, mostly featuring exotic vegetarian cuisine. We keep reminding ourselves of the warnings to avoid certain types of food that may either be too demanding on our systems or not prepared by the most hygienic standards. These include dairy products and uncooked foods such as salads and peeled fruits.

Our next stop in this drive though southern India is the small neighboring state of Pondicherry or Pondy. Please come back and join us on that visit and please look up on the internet for details of the places we are seeing.

Preparing for a hot visit

Our first full day in Chennai, India was a much need opportunity to rest and to adjust. Traveling over several time zones is demanding on anyone, even the seasoned traveller. An equally big adjustment is to the heat and humidity.

We were warned in advance that we chose one of the hottest seasons to visit India. However, our particular circumstances dictated that this was the most convenient time for us. We found that the temperature is in the low 30s, when it could be 40 plus Celsius.

This will be a challenge for us, but I am sure it will be OK. Still I am grateful for AC.

An adjustment I did not prepare for was the city traffic. I had heard and read about it, but believe me, you have to see it to believe it. I am not a seasoned traveller so I accept that this is probably similar in other parts of the world.

After a relaxing day at home with Mathias and Sujatha and periods of deep sleep, we were taken on a drive to a place called Tower Park. The few streets it took to get there offered us an intimate exposure to driving practices that are hard to describe.

First, the city (and probably all of India) is jam packed with motorcycles. There are rows and rows of parked motorcycles on the streets, and parking lots are full of them.

The reason soon became obvious. There are already too many cars and inadequate streets. So who would want to be stick in traffic when you can squeeze through any available two-feet opening.

The other surprising aspect of this for me is that motorcycles is general and family transportation. People of every legal age, gender, status are driving motorcycles. And only some are solo occupants -- many have single, double and triple passengers. A common combination is father and mother with baby stuck between them. In some cases children share the front with the driver and babies are held in arms in the rear seat. It is normal to see male driver and female, sari-draped passenger. And there are women in saris, shalwas and burkas driving them with great ease.

A big adjustment is the driving style of everyone. Two things come to mind -- never ease up on the horns and don't leave any space unoccupied for more than a few seconds. If there are defined lanes, I did't see them. So cars, trucks, buses, auto rickshaws, motorcycles, bicycles were all going in multiple directions. As a passenger it made no sense to me, but I am sure it did to the drivers.

I guess the rule of thumb is that everyone gets used to it in a few days. I understand that becaus that what happens to me when I drive in Trinidad.

In Trinidad, some drivers still use hand signals - after they have completed their manoeuvre. In India, the heat is so high, that many vehicles are equipped with AC, so not many hands dart through the windows.

Just to clarify, none of this is meant to be criticism as much as descriptions of what are. And there a good reasons why traffic is what it is. Not the least of the factors is population density. Change is happening but often very slowly.

The city is in a state of confusion because there is a massive construction project to build a light rapid transit system. Traffic flow has been significantly disrupted.

There is also no suggestion that there are safety issues. In this short time, I have not observed a single accident. Drivers certainly know how to look for each other.

Our plans for the rest of the week include some exploration of cultural and historic sites in south India. Watch for an update in the coming days.

Finally arrived after long smooth journey

Thank you for visiting our blog to stay up-to-date on our vacation in India. We are happy to share the exciting news that we arrived safely in Chennai a few hours ago.

That seems so easy to say, but it is the 21st of June here - Saturday morning. And we left home 8:30 a.m. on June 19. It will be an understatement to say a lot has happened since then.

This was a new experience for us in packing as we travelled with four carry-on size suitcases. We checked them all in and only carried personal bags on board. It made it so easy.

The flight to Toronto was comfortable. In Toronto, Cintra got wheelchair service, so it made the very long walk to the international gate in T1 easy. We did not have seats assigned together for the rest of the journey, so we had to ask passengers to change seats with us. People were very accommodating.

We arrived in Brussels about 8 a.m. June 20. The flight was packed and we had good service including some spicy meals. We got a good connection from Brussels to Mumbai.

Jet Airways India has nice large planes with good movies and modern systems. However, the flight attendants are not big on service. They give easy answers to get you out of the way, but not go out of their way to help.

On a trivial note, I watched the flight path and it looked like it went over Ukraine, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some of the terrain on the map looked very rugged and inhospitable. I privately wondered what it would be like if were forced to land or crashed in that desert or mountains.

On June 21, we arrived in Mumbai about 10:45 and went through all the immigration, customs and security in the Mumbai airport. We were very clear about our request for a wheel chair, so one was ready when we left the aircraft.

The airline worker who escorted us withe the wheelchair was very helpful and friendly. He got us through a lot of steps and saved us a lot of stress.

After clearing the international airport, we had to take a shuttle bus through the tarmac to the domestic terminal for our flight to Chennai.

The level of English dropped a little with the staff, but they did well. We have to get used to the fact that people may assume we know Hindi. But they do very well with English.

It was an interesting adventure traveling from Mumbai to Chennai. It was a full but comfortable flight and were treated to a meal at 3 a.m. Upon arrival in Chennai we disembarked and rode on a bus to the terminal. Again we had a very kind helper who saw to it we got our luggage and took us out to the parking lot to meet our hosts.

The ride to Mathias and Sujatha's house was fascinating since it was our first live exposure to the real sights and sounds of urban India. How could anyone survive the traffic whirling around each other like a tornado? The constant car horns was a blast from the past. And the rough looking buildings, cows wandering, auto rickshaws darting in and out and around anything. All the Bollywood movies flashed back to me.

Today is Saturday and we will catch up on some rest and spend some time With Mathias and Sujatha and plan our visit until we leave next week for Sri Lanka.

will have an update on our outing over the next few days in my next blog.

Join us on our journey to India and Sri Lanka

We are about a week away from embarking on our long-awaited holiday in the Indian sub-continent. We have done as much planning as we could, but still there is a sense of many unknowns, maybe mysteries, about what we might see, experience and feel over the next few weeks.

We are excited about the trip and are anxious to have you join us through this blog. This, we hope, will allow us to share stories, images, impressions with family and friends wherever you are.

As we have been sharing our plans with folks, we are usually asked a number of questions. I will use this second blog to answer some of these.

Typically, we are asked about our itinerary. So here it is.

We leave next Thursday morning with stops in Toronto, Brussels, Mumbai and finally Chennai, the capital of the state of Tamil Nadu. We will visit friends in Chennai for the following eight days. On the June 30 we fly to Colombo, Sri Lanka for 11 days, where we will be hosted by a friend from Cintra's days at University of Saskatchewan.

On July 13, we leave for Kerala, where we will be hosted by a friend we met during his visit to Saskatchewan Conference of the United Church about seven years ago. We will be there for seven days, then we fly to Delhi for the rest of the time until August 3. However, from Delhi we will take a Golden Triangle tour to nearby Rajasthan, where we will visit Jaipur and Agra, the site of the Taj Mahal. We will take in a number of other popular attractions on that four-day tour.

Also from Delhi, we will fly out to Amritsar, known for the Golden Temple and other beautiful sites. In Amritsar, we will be hosted by family of friends we met in the Regina Multi-Faith Forum.

We are also asked what will the weather be like. We are told it will be ghastly hot. I am not a lover of heat, so I will be dreaming of AC wherever I go. Although, the mountains and rain in Kerala may be a welcome relief.

We are asked if we have ever been there before. The answer is no - this is a lifetime dream for us -- our bucket list. There is an emotional connection, because our ancestors came from there many generations ago. Visitors to Saskatchewan from India often invite us, but we think now is the time.

One of the coincidences of the timing is that as of this weekend, Cintra will be retiring as a full time pharmacist and store operator with Pharmasave. So this will be our first holiday as retired folks, and a chance for Cintra to redirect her energy and focus.

We probably have many questions of our own and hope the answers will come soon. We are thinking about how to pack appropriately, what we should or should not consume, and how Cintra will cope following her recent back surgery.

This is a new world for us and we are counting on your continued prayers, love and support. Please stay tuned to this link and send us a note if you can.

Two weeks and counting

Cintra and I are about two weeks away from our lifetime dream of visiting the Indian subcontinent. India is the home of our forebears some four generations ago, although we don't expect to make any personal connections with or even hope to find relatives on this trip.

We are grateful to be hosted by friends in Chennai, Kochi, Delhi, Amritsar and Colombo (Sri Lanka). We ask for your prayers as we undertake this adventure and are open to any advice, tips or suggestions of connections we can make during our six-weeks. We look forward to sharing stories, insights and images when we return in early August.

Please join us for updates at this site.