It seems Gandhi is everywhere in India and after walking west to the water I was met by a roundabout with a large Gandhi statue in it's center. This is about when I started to realize that no one was begging, this would actually be constant during my entire stay in Kerala, successful communist government, perhaps. Well on arriving at the ferry, which was both not a very long walk and also quite lovely along a nice park, though I couldn't seem to gain access as all of the gates were locked, but there were many children playing and having what appeared to be worlds of fun, I found that there were two lines, one for women and one for men and that the ferries were running without a problem. The ferry was unbelievably cheap, just 2rs, which is about 5 cents and quite quick with some fairly nice views.
On alighting from the ferry and walking around Fort Cochin I was bombarded every few minutes by a cab or auto rickshaw driver offering to drive me around, they kept lowering their prices and getting more and more angry with me for not taking their offers, seemingly to me because they thought I was too cheap as they found it unbelievable that I would want to walk, but it was a lovely day and I had every interest in walking around and getting my bearings. I made my way past all of the tourists and the Chinese fishing nets and decided to look for a place away from all of the tourists and started walking towards one of the places in Lonely Planet, of course they were all full up, but the owner was exceedingly nice, offered me tea, bananas and helped me figure out where I should try next, she also knew who 'Noah' was, which I would find to be quite uncommon in India, everywhere else people never seem to understand me when I say 'Noah'. Not to long after my arrival and calling another place that said they had room another tourist showed up and was sent on. I decided then that it would be best to get going. On arriving at the next home-stay I saw the person who had arrived after me sitting in an auto rickshaw just out front and up stairs I found their companion negotiating for a room. After being chastised briefly for taking so long, which instilled a fear in me that I would have no room, but luckily they were just trying to have a little fun at my expense and I ended up with a decently nice room, mind you with out hot water, which at first concerned me, but after taking a long walk in the hot sun, I realized that it would be of little concern. Before leaving a arranged to take a cooking class the next day at 11am.
Well never one to let the day go by without some type of accomplishment especially when in a foreign land, I went down for a walk towards Montecherry and had to compete not just with other pedestrians, cars and bicycles but also the occasional cow, not your average NYC road user that's for sure. Interestingly pedestrians in Indian seem to usually walk with traffic as apposed to walking against traffic. This always seems to cause issues for me, because I'm always trying to walk against traffic so that I can see what next crazy whirl wind is approaching, but then I have considerably more conflicts with pedestrians than I would usually expect to have. For the most part Fort Cochin didn't seem to smell to bad, but when I had to cross a canal I was immediately hit by a terrible stench, which made me increase my pace. I made my way finally to what is referred to as Jew Town as historically there was a large Jewish population there, which is thought to have come to Kerala after the destruction of the second temple, but as it was a Friday the synagogue was closed. But I came across a nice Women's Cooperative, which was selling organically produced spices. It was here that I first saw that the spices in India were no better than what we can get in the U.S. and often times they don't have quite the same Q.C.'s that we have, so I got some nice stuff that is slightly hard to find back home, for a little less than it would be there, but knowing that dealing with the co-op meant that the money was going to the right places. I also started to see how big tea, cocoa and coffee are in the south, but after doing some research in the not so distant future my suspicions were confirmed that none of them are really considered to be of too high of quality as it is too hot and wet for tea and too cool for coffee and cocoa.
On my way back to the guest house I made my way back down the road and was looking for a place called Krishna Cafe, which was recommended to me by one of the people at the guest house that I was staying at. I some how managed to find it even though it was getting quite dark and with all of the traffic. I had a good Thali, which is perhaps the main food of the south, some cutlets and some masala chai. I made my way back to the hostel, some how, and said hello to the people running the hostel, who kindly informed me that the cooking class would have to be moved to 3pm, this would prove to be grand providence. I went to my room took a shower and tried to go to sleep. By try, I mean I laid in bed and tried every trick I could think of to no avail. I was lying there in bed with my mind racing over so many things about my travels and I wondered to myself if I would ever fall asleep. At 2am I turned on a pod cast I had downloaded on my Droid Incredible and finally drifted off to sleep by around 4 or 5. Well with going to sleep so late comes waking up late, so I ended up, even though I had set an alarm for noon, waking at about 2pm. So luckily the cooking class was moved and I was able to quickly and very groggily get myself ready and then at three I was picked up for the class.
The cooking class was actually held at another, smaller guest house which had a French mother and son staying as well as a slightly elderly Israeli women and her two middle aged sons. The first thing we did was go over the recipes, which she had me write down in my notebook. We were making Coconut rice, Coconut Pancake rolls, fried potatoes, an Eggplant curry and a lentil dish. She mostly had me do various chopping tasks. For me I'm so used to using sharp knives, it was a little weird using knives that couldn't even cut my finger, this was also exacerbated by the fact that the counters were made for someone who is no taller than 4'6” tall. By the end I had an aching back. There is this habit that I'm sure everyone has observed where people, especially with seasoned home chefs, cut thing with the blade towards their thumbs, I can never do this, I guess I was taught well by the cub scouts. When it came to making the pancakes I guess I misunderstood how much batter to use so I ended up making way too many little pancakes. With all of the food done It was then my job to eat this enormous amount of food. This was simply not possible in one sitting and luckily I was invited back to finish at dinner time. While eating I got into a good conversation with the Israeli family, mostly by asking them what they though about the whole Egypt situation. One of the sons had absolutely no Idea what I was talking about as he had apparently already been traveling for quite a while and I ended up informing them about Jordan's situation.
Well after, my brunch I walked back over to the guest house, took a shower as I was still feeling terrible sleepy and it being so hot in Cochin and after spending a few hours in a kitchen, one really needs a shower. Afterwards I went for a walk, just to explore and made my way back to the guest house where I took the cooking class. This time my hostess' two daughters were playing the whole time while I ate. I some how got the feeling that they were about 2 years apart from how they were playing, so I asked and I was told that they were 20 months apart, the younger was born in April and the elder was born in May. I found this interesting as my brother and myself are 22months apart and I'm born in April, so I informed my hostess of this and asked when her daughter born in April was born, to which she responded the 29th, so by some weird coincidence we were only off by one day. The girls kept playing hide and seek, but seem to always hide in the exact same place, so I'm not so sure that was exactly their intention. By the end I couldn't finish all my coconut pancake rolls, so I offered them to everyone else. I then said my thanks and headed back to the guest house and stopped for a bottle of water along the way. I somehow forgot to take 50rs in change and just started walking off. About 5min later some car drives by screaming to me that I forgot 50rs at the shop so I head back and thankfully retrieve my forgotten change.
On getting back and getting to bed again I was being attacked by mosquito's regardless of how much repellent I used. Again I feared that sleep would never come while I laid back in bed pondering everything around me. Luckily I still managed to get myself up so that I wouldn't entirely miss the day. However I had managed already to cover most of Fort Cochin and Montecherry so there wasn't really all that much left for me to do. Really all that I needed to do that day was to actually see the synagogue, as I figured that through out my travels I've seen pretty much every other religions holy sites and houses of warship, so why not go to a synagogue, and I was having dinner that night at the Taj with my friend Nick's Parents. On getting to the synagogue I ran into the Israeli family and had a nice quick exchange and then I went off to the synagogue. On first glance it was really quite dirty and not like any other synagogue I'd ever been to, but on looking at the floor, which at first glance consisted of four types of tiles, was actually quite complex where every tile was in some way actually completely unique. They also had a particularly nice little museum that told the story of the synagogue and the main population of the Jews of India. I should note that they actually don't allow cameras inside and that on the front door hung a sign informing the residents about a birth right trip, how funny. I decided then to walk through this little passage way, which contained a book store and cafe. I decided to browse the book shop and saw some seemingly interesting books and then suddenly a book about Jesus living in India caught my eye. The books premise was that Jesus during his lost years studied Buddhism, attained enlightenment and then returned to Israel, it then further went on to say the Jesus survived the crucifixion and then returned to India to die of old age in Kashmir, I could help to let out a little chuckle. I then just went wondering around the Island and at one point went by this building with barbed wire and smelled like urine, it was most pleasant.
I then returned to the guest house and I had the manager order me an Auto Rickshaw for 5:30am to take me to the bus station to catch a bus to Munnar. I then had to rush over to the ferry station to make the last ferry to Wellington Island, which I ended up making with time to spare. Arriving at the Taj I realized how different of a world I had been traveling in than the world that Nick's parents were staying in. The place I guess was quite nice from the outside, but according to Nick's parents it actually wasn't all that amazing in the rooms and was in their opinion quite over priced for what you got. We had what was a pretty good dinner, but I would say even better conversation. It was my conversation with Nick's parents, especially with his father, which I would say started to change some of my perception of India and shaped much of how I looked at the country and my conversations with main Indians to come. Nick's dad made some very interesting points essentially about the stratification and segregation in Indian society.
Well as I said I got the last ferry to Wellington island so my only option was to take cab back to for Cochin. In the end I had a very nice driver, but one that really didn't know where my guest house was, but luckily due to my trusty Droid Incredible I was able to navigate us back. Ah the wonders of technology.
I guess I was still not quite adjusted to Indian time as I still could not fall asleep until quite late, luckily this night I was able to fall asleep some time around 3am, and I only had to wake up by 5am, no big deal. As we drove down the dark and mostly deserted roads, we would pass by the occasional cyclist and the relatively frequent person walking and stopping to pray at various Hindu shrines and temples. On arriving at the bust station I was shocked by the apparent chaos, which is apparently what just about all bus stations are like in India, but some how managed to find my proper bus, which was a super express bus leaving at 6:30. On the bust I began by being compressed by my two bench mates, who seemed not all to happy to have a foreigner to sit next to, but after an hour or so the bus mostly emptied out. This seemed to be a good thing at first and I was able to start up a conversation and become friendly with these two Austrian tourists, Roland and Rafaela, who I would later learn are planning on opening their own Yoga studio and were going to be doing an intensive month long course at an Ashram. Roland was a great person to meet as he had already been to India five previous times. But as most good things do, they come to an end and pretty soon I was getting tossed around like a rag doll as the bus sped up mountains and around curves while hitting huge bumps sending me flying every which way. According to Rafaela I was looking quite pale at times and simply tried to lie down on the bench. In the end though nothing to bad happened, I was simply shaken up and a bit out of it for a while.
So it is quite amazing how quick one becomes adjusted to the rupees as the place we ended up getting breakfast was more expensive than most of the places I had been eating at until then. Now the place was definitely a bit oriented towards tourists as they had English menus, but there were plenty of Indians eating there as well. Really the prices weren't so much higher or for that matter too expensive. I had been paying around 50rs for dinners and lunches and this was not even 100rs, 100rs is only 2.50 or so, so really in then end it is really just nitpicking. Well with our bellies full, myself and Roland started calling up various guest houses in the area and we finally found one with some vacancies named Zina. We managed to hail an auto rickshaw, from one of the apparently few honest drivers in all of India who then took us to the Guest house. The road was first pretty standard until we turned off the main road and actually entered a tea plantation and drove up and through the plantation to get to the main house of Zina Guest House. We were greeted by Joseph the proprietor, who was a spry 80 year old who was extremely enthusiastic about everything that had to do with Munnar. In the end he directed us to a secondary guest house on the same property administered by his grounds keeper. On are walk down with the grounds keeper, he quickly pointed out to some people spraying the tea leaves with something and said that they were giving the trees their medicine, Roland quickly asked if he meant pesticides and after a slight pause the grounds keeper with a huge smile replied, 'Yes'.
Well another room fit for two, but this one at least had hot water, which would certainly be needed as the higher elevation made nights quite cool. After quickly getting some stuff in order and talking a bit with the grounds keeper, Rafaela, Roland and myself all decided to go into town, but first we decided to get some lunch. The grounds keeper quickly recommended one of the hotels at the bottom of the tea plantation. At the restaurant I first saw how Rafaela and Roland traveled, they immediately ordered some fresh juice, which I wouldn't dare consume out of fear of contamination. This immediately started a discussion where they both felt I was being overly cautious, they further felt that my caution would spell disaster for me, but I decided throwing caution to the wind would cause nothing good. The food was simply put bad. Not nearly adequately seasoned, which seemed inexcusable as we were in a major spice producing area, if not one of the main capitals in India of spice. We then went off to town and in some ways I would say it was shocking that we neither were killed by a vehicle nor kill by the stench of urine and pollution. After wondering around a bit we came across a little covered market that stank of gasoline as they were all use little gas powered generators and after running away from that we managed to find ourselves in a little food market. The market seemed to a bit a little oasis in the middle of all of the craziness and it seemed to have pretty fresh smelling air. No where near as oppressive as anywhere else. But of course this didn't last long and we quickly found ourselves back in the mess of everything. After wondering around a bit more Roland inquired with a local about where to eat, the local directed us to the hotel Krishna. To get there we had to cross a little narrow crowded foot bridge that reeked of refuse and sewage, but on arriving we found ourselves at a lovely place that served all kinds of food on banana leaves. It was definitely a good choice. We finished the meal with some Masala Chai and then headed back to the guest house. Walking in the dark along Indian roads is not always advisable, luckily it wasn't quite completely dark yet. After getting back we had a little chat with Joseph about what to do the next day and then we went for a little walk through the tea fields in the dark.
Well I had problems sleeping yet again, whether it was due to the jet lag still or if it was due to loud music being played for a wedding at the bottom of the hill, though more likely a combination of the two. I woke up a bit later than we had planned so was not surprised to see that Roland and Rafaela had already left. But when I got up to Joseph's I found them there, they were apparently just a bit ahead of me. Joseph then went through drawing us a map of where we should go in the most flourished and passionate way I had never seen before. Roland and Rafaela ended up heading down to breakfast a bit before me, and when I got down to the hotel that Joseph has instructed us to go to this time they were no longer serving breakfast. I just assumed that Roland and Rafaela managed to get in in time so I decided to soldier on figuring I'd find some place along the walk to eat at, how mistaken I was. Well on the way I saw many a place where I might be able to eat, but each and every one of them didn't have food until noon. Well the walk took us first through some more of the tea plantation (essentially all of the tea in Munnar is grown by Tata, you might be familiar with their tea, in the U.S. the trade name is Tetley), but this part had considerably more dynamic views. Climbing through the plantation I passed many women who were tea pickers and still I can't believe how they manage to weave through all of the tea trees. It was hear that I started to look closely at the leaves and the main thing I noted was how the edges are serrated. I had actually just learned from a program that serrated edged leaves are evolutionarily adapted to colder climates. This is because the serrations allow for greater surface area, which would mean greater evaporation, which in turn means that there would be more force in pulling water through the roots of the plant. Eventually I reached a view point where Joseph had told us would have tea shops, which I had hoped would be open even with the restaurants being closed, however both shops were closed. It was hear that the tea plantation started to be come cardamom and coffee farm. The coffee was at first hard to find, but the cardamom was really quite easy to spot and really quite interesting how it grows in the shade of their leaves right at the ground. By this point I was just starving and every time I came across people I would ask them where to eat. Finally I came across a group, which consisted of a few people from the bus I was on the day before and one of their guides directed me to a place called tall trees. This was a very pricey ritzy looking place, but at this point food was all I needed. After climbing my way to their restaurant I found Roland and Rafaela waiting in the restaurant for some food themselves as they had apparently experienced the exact same troubled situation as I had. Here the food was quite pricey, but once again still cheaper than what I would have paid for the same thing in the U.S. and it was actually really quite good. After eating we ended up coming across a group of four Australian girls. If I have learned anything from traveling it is that there is always an Australian traveling where you are. So now our party became seven for at least a bit.
Roland, Rafaela and I then proceeded onto a spice garden while the Australians went to go into town for some Internet. The spice garden was really quite interesting, though some of the facts told us were wrong (our guide said that Coffee came from S. America, it comes from Africa), it was really cool to see vanilla beans growing as well as other spices as well. But out guide also informed us that essentially nothing in India is actually organic and certainly not in Munnar. They also though seemingly grow great spices, they don't seem to do much sorting when packaging giving them what appears to be bad consistently purely out of poor QC measures. It was after the Spice garden that I made a big mistake and instead of heading straight for dinner with Roland and Rafaela, I went back to my room did a few things, wasted a bit of time and then went walking into town for food. At this point I was really quite hungry again and I just started walking and was rejecting places that probably would have been fine for really no reason. One place I rejected because their table cloths were covered with stains. Another because there simply weren't enough people. In the end I ended up right back at the Hotel Krishna and ate my food way to quickly, but it was wholly necessary. An then I had to walk back in the pitch black dealing with all of the crazy drivers. Luckily I had a flashlight with me and was able to signal to vehicles of my presence.
Finally a night well slept.
Well on waking up I decided essentially on a whim to just head over to Madurai, which has what is supposed to be one of the most spectacular Hindu temples in all of India and is often considered to be the Taj Ma hall of the south. I got some info from Joseph and headed on my way to the bus stop to first catch a bust to Theni, which is just across the border in Tamil Nadu. This bus ride wasn't so bad. The fare collector was very nice and knew just where would be best to put my pack and the ride though very loud due to the continuous honking was actually not so bad going down the winding roads through all of the tea fields, this driver wasn't driving like a maniac.
And then Tamil Nadu...
Silly-Putty
Push, Pull,
Roll, Stretch
Nothing Permanent
On Newspaper
Always There
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| India-First-Album |
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