Anita came and laid on my bed this morning. "By the way, I think I have lice again," she said.

Yesterday she came in with a bamboo flute she bought on the street and played me music to cheer me up. Which it did. So the lice are forgiven.

Yesterday was another low day for me. Felt so sick, with horrors of mono running through my head. But 12 hours of sleep does wonders. And I'm doing better today. Except for the mysterious itching....

Joking. No itching.

So the Sunderbans. I know I haven't written about them yet, but they now feel so removed it's difficult to get my mind back there. I'll try. But I warn you in advance, I'm already unsatisfied with anything I write.

It was a beautiful trip down. We caught a bus and rode through the countryside. Small villages and soccer games in every town. Sometimes being in Calcutta it's difficult to remember that India has life outside the city.

It seems that for many of the people south of Calcutta, fishing is a huge livelihood. We went past field upon field upon field submerged, with people wading through the waters with nets, bringing in the harvested fish.

And then we boarded a boat and headed into the jungle. Only it's not really a jungle. It feels more like a marsh. The mangroves are low lying trees with huge roots that stick out above ground. Because the water of the Sunderbans is salt water (from the Bay of Bengal) the mangroves are the only vegetation that have adapted (and thus have no competition for sunlight, keeping the tree growth relatively short and low to the ground). Their roots stick up to absorb more oxygen that is apparently difficult to absorb in the rising salt waters.

The people that live in the sunderbans are a sub-tribe (from what I can gather - I'll have to look it up) of Bengalis, and they are mainly rice farmers, honey collectors, and fishermen. They live in mud and straw houses in a landscape and a lifestyle that has changed very very little for hundreds, possibly thousands of years.

And every year they are hunted and killed by the world's only remaining man-eating tigers that live in the sunderbans.

And the people seem to accept it. Here, they say, the Tiger is stronger than man. But why do they only kill here? Up to 80 people a year? Where elsewhere in the world, Tigers haven't attacked, let alone killed a human for years and years? There are many theories, all interesting, but all just theories. No on knows why for sure.

Still, it's terrifying. Many of the women dress in widow clothes when then men go out fishing (tigers have been known to pull them right out of boats) or deep into the mangroves to collect the honey.

We were safe though. In a really big boat. And (I now feel lucky about this) we didn't see any tigers. We did see crocodiles, lizards, and birds though. Which all felt much safer.

And the tent was like a house, and there was a huge buffet at every meal and the food was so good and the flowers and fellow travelers beautiful and the landscape breathtaking and so so quiet.

And that's all I feel like writing. It's difficult to think about because now I'm in an internet cafe and it's the first day of Diwali and there is a dance party happening outside and the sunderbans feel like a wonderful world away. How quickly Calcutta takes over everything else.

Time is moving quickly. Stan went home today. We sent him home with a shirt that says "Calcutta is great, france sucks." And I only have about a month left. Only a month and a few days.

Just please, please don't let me be sick again! I have so little time left.