Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Sounds Like Farting into a Kazoo

So that title is really apropos of nothing - just a random remark Francis made yesterday regarding the maniacal music we were subjected to at the Bangalore Airport while we had 7 hours to kill and Francis had zero hours of sleep the night before.

This is our final night in India - closing out a trip that took us to 4 states, 12 cities, and 15 hotels.

Delhi was a shock to the system. Smokey air. Piles of garbage. Brokedy, urine-soaked sidewalks. Intimidating food stalls. And water so hard that the soap doesn't even lather.

Jaipur was magical. Kite runners. Breath taking sunsets over the Pink City. Trodding all over the Man Singh Palace. Stopping over at the scary Monkey Temple.

Agra ~ home to the Taj Mahal & lesser visited monuments. The water is so hard here that not only doesn't it lather but it stripped my hair color. Got a little tipsy on whiskey with Kala.

Bangalore gave us so many trips to the malls and a single taste of dreadful Indian wine. Our first real Indian thali & our first ever (but not last) dosas. So much walking and a little too much tension in the morning.

Mysore had the incredible smells of street food and the "Spicy Market". Pony carts & the Krishna rally.

Ooty gave us cherished memories of startling vistas. Wood fire pizza. Kitschy museums. Cheerfully colored houses, so many goats and tea for days.

Coimbatore holds no memories for me. That's the day I stayed in bed sicky with the cold.

Fort Cochin. Inhale & exhale. Too many dreadlocks & Save Tibet bags. The best food I had on the trip at Dal Roti Restauarnt. An afternoon taking photos of so many doors in Jew Town. And two nights at a hotel so clean it almost met my standards.

Munnar. Meh. When it comes to hill stations Ooty is far superior. But we did see some crazy katakali and ate some tasty dosas.

Thekaddy ~ it's best not to say anything at all.

Alleppey. The Lovely houseboat with the delightful crew. Friendly locals. Tasty on board meals. It was like spending the day inside a picture post card.

Kovalam. Stunning beach with the crashing waves of the Arabian Sea (or was it the Indian Ocean ~ and how is it decided where one body of water begins and another ends?). Squitched our toes in the sand. Fran got knocked down by waves and tickled by jelly fish. Saw so many Griswold-like Christmas light displays - only these had twirly swastikas. We lost one day of the trip to tofu-poisoning but recovered quickly.

We traveled on 1 bus, 2 trains, 3 airplanes, & 4 rented cars. I decided that the best railways soundtracks include The Clash, Citizen Cope & Rufus Wainright. For buses and cars I prefer Ani Difranco, Jawbreaker & Tom Petty. And my airplane selection includes Eartha Kitt, Elvis Costello & PJ Harvey.

We leave India a little lighter. Laughter & love will do that. (Who else could I spend 99.5% of every waking and sleeping moment with for 31 days straight and not strangle - or be strangled by?) Our packs have a shed a few pounds from the books we loved and left along the way. Fran has left some pounds behind ~ after suffering Delhi-belly for two thirds of the trip (so yes, Jhames, he'll look stunning at the cotillion). Alas - I never did pick up that tape worm I was looking forward to.

But I do leave with some wisdom and greater understanding. I think I should not be so quick to take so much for granted - the beauty & quiet of my garden, the clean water that spills from he tap, the electricity that behaves so predictably, the relative order on the roads. And the freedom I've known. Freedom to choose my career path and higher education, freedom to live anywhere and pick the city that captured my imagination, freedom to travel to exotic and somewhat frightening places, freedom to marry my true love & share all of these things with him.

Until the next, dear friends & loved ones. Namaste...

Friday, December 24, 2010

Christmas in Kovalam, Kerala

Photos include:Road-side sugar cane juice. 6 Rupees & Delicious! ~ Santa-Fran post dip in the pool ~ Kanyakumari ~ Kovalam Beach on Christmas Day ~ The ocean front "view" from our hotel












































T'was a bit of a challenge to get into the spirit of merry X-mas with 80-some degree weather and the waves of the Indian Ocean crashing outside. We've spent so too much time in a car this last week and have decided to make a slight change to the itinerary. We simply couldn't bear the thought of spending 8-9 hours in the car back to Kochi to get on a bus for 12 more hours back to Bangalore. So we're bailing on the bus tickets and staying put in Kovalam for 2 more days. Then we'll fly straight to Delhi (with a 7 hour stop at the Bangalore airport) for our final 2 days in India before the long long plane sojourn back to Sea-Town. Thus ends the bus & train portions of the migration. It's all airplanes and taxis from here.

On Christmas Eve we visited Kanyakumari - the southern most tip of India - where the nation begins and ends (depending on your perspective). Here the three seas meet - the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, & the Arabian Sea. We visited a temple where Swami Vivekananda spent 3 days meditating on a rock off the coast back in 1892. We tried to take a turn at meditating here ourselves. However, these novice meditators couldn't concentrate over the sounds of one small child with a whistle standing 6 feet behind us. What we thought was going to be an afternoon trip to Kanyakumari turned into an all-day journey of driving, driving, standing in line, being herded onto a boat and then more driving, driving through several Christmas Eve traffic jams.

The population of India is 2.3% Christian & pretty much all of them live in this southwestern state of Kerala. The Dutch & Portuguese colonized huge chunks of this part of India - savagely converting the local Hindus to Christianity hundreds of years ago. So on Christmas Eve the lights were up in true Griswold- Christmas style. At least we had something nice to look at while we sat in horrific traffic jams.

Turns out the choice to stay put for 2 days was wise. We took the DeMetros out for a parting dinner on Christmas night only to be poisoned by the tofu at Fusion Restaurant. Francis and I were awakened at 3am with a wretched bout of the sick. We spent the day in bed underneath the AC rumbling like a lawn mower - sleeping for some 17 hours and hoping that Shikha was doing somehow OK with their marathon car - then bus trip.


The new hotel has only one English language station - Russia TV - so that gives me more time to think rather than watch endless episodes of Win it in a Minute or How I Met Your Mother. So many people in India. Such scarcity of resources. This causes one of the biggest frustrations for visiting India - the constant competition and need to fight for everything. Nothing comes easy here - you have to shout, draw attention, sometimes bully your way. And yet it doesn't cause tension for the Indians - just for us Westerners - leaving us sweaty, bewildered, and defeated at times. But it also leaves me grateful - with an awareness of the privilege that comes with my light skin and American passport. I think the thing I most take for granted is the quiet back home. So many people and so much competition makes for lots and lots of noise. If you're lucky enough to find a hotel away from the band saws and Muslims waking for 4am prayers then you probably have a rooster relentlessly crowing just outside your window or an ancient air conditioner shucking and jiving in a labored effort to spit out some cool.

I think we're ready to head home where life is just that much easier. And hopefully I won't forget to put my daily frustrations into perspective. I may do one final post from the (hopefully) posh boutique hotel we've booked in Delhi.

Friday, December 17, 2010

A Different India
































Well, we've def happened upon a different sort of India here in the south. This place is crawling with Europeans and Australians on holiday. We Westerners have two sorts of uniforms. We either dress in our drab, loose earth-tone clothes - cargo pants/shorts/skirts with tank-tops or kitschy t-shirts or else the pyjama/baggy MC-Hammer pant with scruffy beard and Save Tibet cloth bag look. Conservative attire gets tossed out the window. There are washing machines (and dryers!) as well as darling little art bars that serve decent coffee (not beer). Things are much more chill in this part of the country.

We very much enjoyed our brief stay in Fort Cochin, sipping ginger tea and taking in the sights. The photos starting this post were taken in Jew Town. Excellent doors in Jew Town. No Jews though. But there was this random baby doll head nailed to a tree along with some cloth dolls & stuffed animals.

We met up with Joe & Shikha and headed back to the hills - Munnar this time. We caught a local Kathakali performance - traditional Kerala dance and acting. The actors don't speak - but they do scream a lot. I mean A LOT.

We did some local sightseeing including a dam and a nature walk. So we saw lots more tea, many more vistas, and some goats. Best of all Joe and Francis - BFFs to the end - got to spend some quality time together.

We had poor timing for the Tiger Preserve in Thekkady. Not a huge deal - the tigers were scarce. Joe did spy a monkey eating some potato chips.

The real highlight so far was the house boat along the backwaters in Allepey. We took in the sights (including a communist mosaic in the village) , listened to some loud pop music, ate well, drank some beers, and watched Kick Ass. The local folks were super friendly. It seemed like an excellent place to live and I wish we had more time on the boat. What a life - 3 meals served and a boat boy to fetch beer. I think we may have to go back some time.

Then it was back in the car with windy roads behind us and off to the beach. So, here we are in Kovalam - home for the next few days before we wrap up the migration with a hop back to Bangalore and then 2 final days in Delhi. I can't believe we're getting to the end. It's been an amazing journey - full of special treats, unnecessary frustrations, gorgeous sights, confounding views, and yummy food.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Bea-Ooty-ful photos

Okey dokey. Here we go...HTML be damned! We start with the Thread Garden's haughty claim. Then we move to the decrepit mongoose from the Tribal Museum.


Next we have Fran next to one his fave things about India - the trash bins shaped like animals. Stay tuned for an entire Facebook photo album (on his profile) dedicated to them.

Then we move to the Todda village and Todda temple shots.
































The cemetery at the 100 years old (actually 200 years old) church made for an interesting tromp around.

On we move to the tea plantation & tea factory. That machine is the C-T-C machine. It cuts, turns, and curls the tea leaves.

Ah, yes, the Savoy Hotel and my $7 whiskey sour sans egg white (?)

Fran did some roaming in Coimbatore whilst I suffered through the only English language nonsense on TV. The chalk drawings are done outside of homes to bring prosperity.








































































































The final shots are from Fort Cochin. The Chinese fishing nets are used each morning from 8:30-10:30. Seemed like a lot of labor (it takes 4-6 men to maneuver them) for not so many fish.

We close this post with a wistful Fran at Cafe Coffee Day - India's answer to Starbucks.