If I Could I Would

The last few blog entries have been imageless and, likely until at least May, will remain that way. Since we left Bhutan, Scott and I have been computer-less. Like many travelers, our only interaction with internet comes when we’re sitting at a crowded and oftentimes noisy internet café. The keyboards tend to be antiquated with the keys, stiff and sticky, feeling foreign to the fingertips. It’s usually not the most ideal situation to be writing to loved ones, or blogging.

In Calcutta, I had bought a USB card reader with the sole purpose of taking images off my camera to blog. And for a while, about a month, it worked. Then we got to Fort Cochin in Kerala, the first true foreign tourist enclave we encountered on our travels through India. I insisted we spend some time at an internet café. I got some transcribing done, posted a blog post or two. When I was finished, I ejected the card reader from the computer, inserted the memory card back into my camera and, as a matter of habit, turned on my camera to make sure the images were still there. This time, when I pressed the review button, the screen read, “No images.” On the home screen, when I tried to take a picture, it read, “Cannot create folder.” It appeared there were no images on my card and I was unable to capture any more photos on my 16 GB card.

The computer in Fort Cochin was entirely and massively corrupted with viruses and had spread them to my memory card. I won’t go into the details of what I did next to try and rid my card of those viruses but I do have a fear that I may have lost a month’s worth of Indian photos, roughly 3,000 images. (When I get back to the states, I will be searching for a specialist in retrieving potentially lost information.)

Just know that if I could I would post images of that first spectacular banana leaf meal at Jagan’s house, the ruins of Mamallapuram, Maneekshi Temple in Madurai, the tree-lined streets of Kodai Kanal, the sunrise at Kanyakumari, the houseboat Scott and I lounged and rode on in the backwaters of Kollum in Kerala as well as the delicious food we were spoiled with, and the elephants at the Siva Temple in Ernakulum.