I'm sitting next to a monk at an internet cafe

He's wearing crimson robes and a Patagonia fleece that's the exact same color as his robes. I wonder if he went from store to store trying to match the fleece to the robes, or lucked out on the first try? Or maybe the fleece is standard issue with the robes? I wish I had my camera so I could take a surreptitious picture, but that would be wrong, and I wouldn't like it if someone was taking my picture while I'm sitting here typing and trying to download pictures and whatnot. Which, by the way, is exactly what monks do at internet cafes. We saw dozens of them in Laos, where most men at some point in their lives are temporarily ordained and spent a year or two at a wat. So all over Laos there are these little guys--like as little as 8 or 9, from the looks of them--who are wearing saffron robes and checking their email, or smoking cigarettes behind the temple (I swear!) or riding around town on the back of a tuk tuk.

We're in Delhi now, staying in New Tibet, a quiet refuge full of Tibetans in the northern part of the city (thanks to Matt who recommended it). We got in at about 2 am after flying for 25 hours (that's right--Delhi is basically right next to Singapore, our previous stop, but because we bought our tickets with miles instead of cash, we could only fly into Delhi through PARIS. Which I assure you, is really far out of the way).

Singapore was great. We weren't expecting much, other than the big treat that we got to catch up with our friend Justin, but it was a really great city. We ate tons of delicious food at hawker stalls (highlights were the raw fish and Singapore noodles) and mostly fixed some belly problems we'd been having since Laos, and did a whole lotta laundry. Like finally washed everything in our bags for the first time since we hit the road in November. And Justin, who has been living there for nearly three years but is moving to Nanjing China in just 2 weeks, really showed us a good time. We went for a long walk through the city, including the Arab district, the colonial quarter and the crazy harbor and skyscrapers of downtown. We went to the best food courts and street stalls and had our final night's dinner in the red light district before saying goodbye. We're already trying to figure out how we might get to Nanjing to visit in the not too distant future.