Traveler's Tips for Cochin

-- Stay in Fort Cochin. There is absolutely no reason to stay in Ernukalam. There is really no reason to even venture into Ernukalam other than for the bus or train station.

-- We stayed in Casa Linda. Clean, nice, friendly, even has internet access.

-- The Kashi Art Cafe is all that the guidebooks say. A little haven where you could sit for hours. They serve a grilled tomato and cheese sandwich to die for.

September 8: Leaving Cochin

Ok, I have so many holes to fill in this log still -- there are many essays on my palm pilot that will be uploaded here in the next couple days, so do check back. In the meantime, I am leaving Cochin today -- alone for the first time -- on a train. I had to stay an extra day, after the MF group left, just due to train ticket logistics, so I found myself a lovely hotel right on the water and spent the night in a cottage overlooking the sea. But I'm checking out now, and it's off to the station -- Junction station, as it happens, this time I am sure I have the right one.

I arrive in Goa at 3:45 AM and do not yet have a place to stay there, so I am relying on the 24-hour information desk my book insists is in the train station, and the fact that it is out of season. I figure one night in whatever I can find, and then I go find the prettiest beach in the whole world and stay there for a few days. . .

Transportation #7

The MF travel group got tickets to go to Mumbai some time ago, planning to leave Cochin on September 7. I knew from the beginning that I wouldn't go with them, but would travel to Goa instead. If it worked, I'd try to get on the same train, but I hadn't bought a ticket. Their tickets said they were supposed to leave from Ernakulam Town trainstation at 3:10; but everyone everywhere said that the fast train was really a 12:45 train. There was general confusion, but it was agreed that they'd aim for 12:45 and I'd buy a ticket at the station.

The first hitch was in getting to the station. As we checked out of the hotel, we had, um, something of a rickshaw boycott due to the fact that we had paid Indian prices for a fee earlier that day instead of inflated Western prices. The three drivers we'd had were camping outside our hotel -- whether to insist on more money, warn others not to pick us up, or make sure they got the juicy fare to the train station I'm not sure. Suffice it to say that much bargaining was going on, and it slowed us down. The others called a few cabs, but I decided to just get into a rickshaw with Peggy in order to get to the trainstation ahead of time and buy a ticket. We jumped in with Ashok Kumar, (Ashokkumar919@yahoo.com as it happens. It was written across the inside of the rick. I highly recommend him.) who carefully explained that he was not used to having such trouble with tourists, he always did everything for them, since German tourists had bought him this rickshaw last year. We nodded and didn't say much.

We got increasingly panicked, however, when it took some 40 minutes to get to the station -- we had no idea how the rest of the group was going to make it in time. Ashok told us to pray that the train would be late.

We did. (I am not sure to whom Peggy prayed. I prayed to the Transportation Goddess who has watched out for me for years, including getting me good parking spots.)

When we got to Town station, Peggy jumped out and grabbed Ashok to come with her to help translate if necessary. A moment later they came tearing back. "It's at the OTHER station!" they said. One of our taxis showed up that moment, we told them the information, and with about ten minutes to spare we began racing through town to the Ernakulan Junction station. Ashok really showed his stuff. He swerved in and out, honked his horn. We managed to spot the other taxis as we were driving and signalled them all to turn around and follow us on the mad chase through the city.

We ran into the station, ran to the information booth, only to be told that it was indeed the FIRST station. But, thankfully, it was also a 3:10 train as they'd originally been told. We laughed and decided the adrenaline rush had been kind of fun, and calmly ordered a whole new round of rickshaws to takes us back to Town station. Jan said: "I think if I were alone I'd just sit in a corner and cry, but together it always works out."

Once we were at the other station again I discovered that no train to Goa left from Town station, and indeed, I had to go back once again to Junction station for a 2 o'clock train. Meaning I would see both Cochin stations twice in the space of about 20 minutes. Since were all together though, the whole thing was just kind of amusing.

Except for the part where I had to say goodbye.

I climbed into my rickshaw alone. . . and cried.

September 6: Houseboat!

Eleven of us piled onto our houseboat in Allapouzha at 3 PM yesterday, complete with eleven very large backpacks. There were three men working the boat, one to cook, two to steer and navigate. We shoved off, the crew put out sliced pineapple, we turned on the stereo system and the good ship "Welcome Cruise" (that was really the boat's name) set sail.

Xianguo "Dora" Zhong steering our houseboat.

Imagine the scene: Eleven people from five countries dancing to Abba on the deck of a coir-covered houseboat while eating vodka-infused pineapple and drifting by palm-trees and fishing canoes along perfectly still estuaries in the middle of India. The moon was high, the bats two-feet across, and the crew a little worried at how much the boat was shaking. Personally, I kept waiting for the fishermen police to show up -- but it turns out the music didn't carry particularly far and we were an island unto ourselves.

This scene of fraternal and international bliss brought to you by the Melton Foundation. Pretty hard to imagine it happening any other way.

Travel Tips for Allapouzha

--Not the loveliest town ever, but the UAE bank is a solid place to change money, and the Kream Korner isn't bad for dinner.

--You can trust the people who walk up to you randomly on the street and offer hotels, boats, cars, as much as the people in the tourist offices. Somewhere along the way -- perhaps in Europe -- I got the idea that this wasn't so smart, but it seems to be a fairly effective way of getting things done here.

--We stayed at the Gowri, phone number: 0091477223637 and it was clean, inexpensive, and had really friendly staff.

September 5: Multi-cultural Bargaining in Allapouzha

The travel guide books warned that Allapouzha in of itself was not a particularly pretty town -- and they're right. We got into town after dark on the 4th, and picked a hotel to stay at called the Gowdri -- largely because their emissaries were standing at the boat landing with offers of driving us and our baggage to their hotel. The hotel was clean and quite pretty -- though it would have been mroe so if the lovely plants in the garden were spaced out by, say, grass, instead of dirt. The people who worked there, however, were fantastically friendly, staying up late to teach us how to play a game something between air hockey and billiards.

But by the next day we were ready to leave. It's off-season in Kerala, so we figured we had a good shot at getting a houseboat at a reasonable price. Peggy, Dora, Jan, and I, walked into a tourist information center and were offered an overnight, two-room boat for -- after some haggling -- 9000 rupees (about $200). We said we'd let them know.

We walked out of the store and were instantly picked up by a guy promising us a boat at a better price. 4500 rupees for a two-room boat. We asked for a bigger boat, and he convinced us to get into two rickshaws and come see his boat. Despite some misgivings about leaving the main center of town, we all piled in. Dora, a petite Chinese fellow, turned to us as our rickshaw rolled down a four-foot wide dirt road and said: "This is definitely not something I would do if I was alone." I had to agree.

The houseboat we were shown was beautiful. Three bedrooms plus some extra room to sleep outside (there were 11 of us) with the nicest bathrooms we'd had at any hotel so far. We sat down around the dining table on deck to talk. His opening bid was 9000. Since he'd offered us a two-bedroom for 4500 back in town, I told him that doubling the price for one extra room was unreasonable. This was about the last semi-nice thing anyone said to him -- which led to his addressing all comments to me, despite the barrage of barganing he was getting elsewhere. It was a glorious multicultural haggling event. He, in typical Indian style, always wrote out his counter offers on a piece of paper. I smiled and tried to make everyone just get along. Peggy and Jan sat with German cool, arms crossed across their chests. Dora simply sat quietly and watched.

Peggy did most of the takling. This was far too much for an extra room, she was willing to pay extra for food, but not that much, etc. Finally she told the man that we'd already gotten an offer in town and while this boat was clearly nicer, we'd just take that if he didn't match the price.

"What price did they give you?"

She hesitated only a moment. "7000." She said later that she even surprised herself. I could tell that she almost started to laugh. The guy looked apalled and said that for 11 people it was impossible.

And that's when Dora started. Dora jumped in in full force. Trust me, you never want that girl angry at you. "Look! Do you want ust to give you the money or not?? We're going to just walk away and take the other boat! it's your choice. Do you want the money?"

He accepted the offer.

Transportation #4 and #5

We walked to the bus stop in Kumily, in order to get onto a state bus to Kottayam. We were told they left every half hour, so we didn't bother to make reservations ahead of time. Karla, who is from Chile, walked into the tourist station to get information while I looked around at the wide range of buses around us -- big comfy ones all the way to crowded ones with wooden benches. I pointed at the latter and said: "I am embracing Indian culture, but I don't need to embrace it THAT much."

Which preordained my fate, of course.

Karla came back, pointed at the benches and said: "That's our bus."

Deep breath. I got into self-survival mode, sharpened my elbows and threw myself onto the bus first to make sure I got a window seat. I got one (don't mess with an only child) but didn't realize that the seat I was on was actually one for three people. Jan -- of Andre the Giant fame -- was sitting next to me, and when he realized that he was going to have to move over, he said: "But this is for three Indians! Not Germans!" Suffice it to say, the journey was much worse for him than for me. I leaned out the window the whole time -- despite being warned by the friendly man in front of me that this might not be such a good idea since we would be cutting pretty close to other vehicles. The three men in front of us were all very friendly actually, though their English was minimal. They turned around at every stop and stated the name of the town for me, which I valiantly tried to repeat. Again, this was more fun for me than it was for Jan.

Despite the fact that the ride was a wee bit better than I might have expected -- and far better than it was for the thirty or so people standing the whole way -- four hours of this kind of travel got old pretty quickly. When we got out at Kottayam, the relief was palapable. But this was just a pit stop for us, as we were next going to hop a ferry to Alapuzha. We'd been told this was the nicest way to get there, but the dock itself was uninspiring -- a dirt parking lot and a jetty of concrete. Then the ferry itself arrived. It looked solid enough, but the thought of being jam-packed onto it for another four hours just made something in me snap.

I grabbed Peggy (a German student who is friends with some of the MF fellows, and joined our group) by the hand and announced: "We're going to go rent a boat." The first place we tried said this was impossible so late in the day since the boat would interfere with the fishermen's nets. Since the ferry was about to leave the dock, we didn't quite buy this. We walked into the next stop, where they happily offered us a boat for the mere price of $25.

Palm trees on the backwaters

Wow. We set out down a canal lined with palm trees, riding under manual drawbridges, yanked up with ropes by the people who lived on the side of the water. There were kids swimming, women doing laundry, men bathing. We kept going from side to side on the boat waving hello, tossing pens to those who asked, and taking photos. All of which turned out to be something of a problem since we were sitting on plastic chairs on the roof of the boat and any movement brought the whole thing listing far over to one side or the other.

Regardless, I can only say what Johanna said: "Everyone said that the backwaters were nice, but I never imagined they'd be this beautiful." These weren't canals like you see in Amsterdam or Venice -- they were much larger, the size of a serious river. On the sides were stone walls lining thin strips of land covered in palm trees. Beyond that were manicured squares of rice fields. The area is called "God's Own Country" and you understand the name instantly. Our boat moved slowly. (But still only took two and a half hours, which makes one wonder how fast the ferry traveled.) The sun began to set, and the sky turned pink and purple-grey, and the wind blew across the boat, and everything, everything in the whole world was alright.

Travel Tips for Kumily

--We stayed at the Rolex hotel (ph 0091-94869-222081) which was clean and nice, and centered right in town. It's still got the whole cold water shower thing going on, but quite comfy. We payed 300 rupees per room per night, though they asked for 400 for starters. The guy behind the desk also runs a sound tourist office, and --while he didn't do a lot of smiling -- he really steered us right in terms of the amenities we took him up on.

--Don't eat at the Lake Shore hotel for dinner. Vile. (Corrollary: don't go off in search of your own restaurant out of sheer perversity when several people have already told you to eat at the Lake Queen hotel.)

--Eat at the Lake Queen hotel. Order appams and puttus a day ahead if they say they don't have them on the menu. So good.

--Go on a spice and plantation tour. Leave yourself at least a half day. Get Shaji (mobile phone: 0091-94475223986) to lead it if you can!

September 4: Spice Tour

There is something strangely efficient about India. It's not always logical, or on time, but things generally get accomplished fairly smoothly. Things are even fairly regimented sometimes -- as evidenced by the spice tour we went on this morning.

The region around Kumily is known for its spices and coffee and tea, and a plantation tour usually takes a half a day. We only had two hours early in the mornign to spare before hopping a noontime bus. The guy at our hotel said no problem he'd arrange it, and at 7 AM there were three rickshaws waiting for us downstairs. We piled in and careened off in rickshaw style to our first coffee plantation. Our guide, Shaji, walked us up a hill and showed us our first coffee plant. He held up three fingers (a gesture I knew well from yesterday's Periyar tour, in whic the guid mostly said things like: "There are five deer here -- small, big, white, white and big, and black." Or "There are three kinds of squirrels -- small, giant, and flying." Cataloguing and naming is a big deal here.) and announced there were three kinds of coffee grown: arabica, and two others that I can no longer remember. This would disturb Shaji greatly, as nto only was he a vataloguer, but he wanted to make sure we were paying attention. He would stop and start over if he saw someone's attention wandering. Since not everyone understood his fast-paced, Indian-accented English, I told him not to worry about it, that I would repeat what he said to everyone. Thisonly helped partially, since he was just as adamant that everyone pay close attention when I spoke and he made me stop if they weren't.

"That one. Him. He's not listening." Once, when Peggy was fiddling with her camera, interrupted me to get her attention. "You. Do you already know this? Yes? Then why don't you explain it to everyone?" Like an elementary school teacher.

Regardless, Shaji smiled a great deal and was full of wonderful information. "Please, Madam" he would say to me -- now that I was acting as interpreter, I got most of his attention, and the gruop continued to echo his "Please Madam" at me for the rest of the day -- and he pulled me over to taste a raw coffee bean. (They taste, well, green.) He was meticulous with numbers, telling us how long the beans were roasted and at what temperature. He corrected me if I skipped this information in my retelling. He also fed us small purple flowers called mimosas, said to be an Aryuvedic cure for a sick stomach. Half the gruop grabbed at them, laughing. The coolest thing about the mimosas, however, was taht their fern-like leaves pulled closed if you touched them. (The Germans said they finally understood a phrase where you mock someone who is being too timid by calling them an alte mimosa.)

Next we rickshawed our way to some cardamom-covered hills. Cardamom plants, it turns out, are beautiful. Long thing leaves, almost like a thick blade of grass, tower up over your head; the seeds grow close to the ground on stalks that jut out of the roots. The season lasts some three months, with seeds taking two weeks to ripen. Every two weeks women come through and hand pick a crop of seeds. "Please, Madam!" Shaji cracked open a pod for me. It was delicious. Still raw, and slightly green-tasting, but cardamom nonetheless.

Shaji then bustled us up a hill. He wanted us to be quick sine we only had two hours and he wanted us to see everything. He barked when people stopped to take pictures of the view. "It's better from the top," he said.

And it was.

I stepped out from behind a tree and gasped out loud. One by one I heard everyone else make the same involuntary noise. We were at the top of a hill ("Two miles high," said Shaji) looking down onto an extensive valley. As far as you could see, the sides of the hills were covered with dark green tea plants -- they grow strangely geometrically, leaving winding passageways in between the bushes, almost like a garden labyrinth. Spaced in perfect rows. among the tea plants, were trees for shade. Colors dotted the landscape -- the occasional cottage, women int eh fields. Shaji finally allowed us to take some photos.

On the way back down we stopped at another coffee plant. they grew straight upwards, Shaji said, but they were pruned to stay low, so women could pick the beans. "Men ask for 120 rupees [$3], women only ask for 65. And the men maybe they work one day but not the next. The women don't go on strike." I repeated this to the group unthinkingly. It wasn't until Lars said, "65 per day?!?" that I processed the information. Keep the trees lower for hassle-free labor. (See? Strangely efficient.)

Next stop: a cardamom roasting house. A fire outside pumps hot air through pipes at the bottom of a room. The cardamom pods lie on screens above this for 24 hours at 50 degrees Celsius. I think one kil of raw pods reduces to 750 grams, but I can't remember how much it sells for. Shaji would be very disappointed in me.

What I do remember is this-- as Shaji picked spices for us on the walk back to the rickshaws: vanilla (only one kind, not tasty raw, reduces from one kil to 250 grams when roasted) looks like green beans on the stalk; allspice (only one kind) is a combination of cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, and cloves; and peppercorns (four kinds, but all from the same plant, harvested at different times) have the spiciest, loveliest, most complex flavor right off the vine.

September 3: Periyar (and crowds)

One of the circumstances I was prepared for ahead of time were beggars and crowds. I was warned that people might follow you for blocks and blocks asking for money, and that giving money was no solution since then others would follow. I haven't experienced this so far at all -- though I know this is mostly because of the places I have visited, which are the wealthier parts of India. The few people who have asked for money have been amazingly unintrusive. Persistent certainly, but perfectly quiet, just standing and watching and holding out a hand. It seems absurd not to give, and so I have.

In fact, what I am asked for most often is candy and pens, and if I had known I would have stocked up on hundreds before I left. It's a shame I didn't know.

I was aware that once we left Bangalore, things might change, but Kumily our next stop was a small town that is fairly prosperous due to both tourism and a thriving spice and tea trade. In addition, once we hit Kumily we went to the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary, which naturally has fairly few humans. We went for a three-hour trek through the sanctuary, with a silent guide who pointed out various birds, giant squirrels, monkeys, and loads of deer. Ostensibly this is a sanctuary for tigers, but they only come out at night and the most we saw was a footprint in the mud. (Which was nevertheless surprisingly cool.) There is also a chance of seeing elephants, but we didn't spot any. In fact the closest I really got to wildlife was a two-inch leech that tried to attack my jeans. It was a gorgeous hike though, complete with a bamboo raft boatride across a river. Afterwards, I sat on a wall looking out over a lake and pulled out my watercolors.

I am not a great watercolorist, I just like to play with them, and the lake was so gorgeous, with a few roaming water buffalo and lots of green trees, that I figured I would give it a try.

This, THIS is what produced a crowd. A bunch of tailors from Tail Nadu appeared out of nowhere. Seven or eight of them, watching over my shoulder . . . and helping. When I pulled out a piece of tissue to blot up some of the water, oen of them took part of the tissue and started blotting too. One picked up a paintbrush and I truly thought he might try to paint on my paper as well. When I finished the painting, I offered it to one of the men, and he said no, but another one jumped in and took it. Now the gates had been opened. Everyone wanted one. All of them tapped on their chests asking for their own. I only had time to paint one more, but I was asked for my signature on both, as was Dora, a fellow from China, who had painted a picture as well. We had friends for life.

Candy, pens, and watercolors. Bring them on your next trip.

September 3: The Trip to Kumily

I seem to be overly concerned with forms of transportation. Perhaps it's just a less complicated topic then writing about some of the tougher stuff concerning poverty and dirt, though I'm sure I will get to that too. . BUT the bus to Kumily was, in retrospect, pretty much exactly the way an Indian bus should be -- all the noise and contrasts one expects in this country. It was a semi-sleeper, meaning that its seats reclined almost as much as a business class airplane seat, but that the person in front of you pretty much had their head in your lap. There was extremely loud music paying that somehow fit into my India Is Exuberant theme, and so felt quite festive, until it was replaced around midnight with an even louder movie. At which point the shrill noise was a little much, but thankfully, someone realized everyone on the bus was trying to sleep and it was turned off about twenty minutes later. Every time I would just get to sleep, thinking it wasn't so bad, they would turn on the lights in order to let new people on.

The best part, however, was at 6 AM when the ticket taker -- of which there were two on board, in addition to the driver -- roughly shook everyone awake in order to inexplicably remove the seat cover over the top of the headrest. I am not sure why this was necessary at all, much less an hour before we reached our final destination, but clearly he had had enough of a bus full of sleepers.

Regardless, it meant that all of us -- there are ten in our group, five Germans, three Chinese, one Chilean, and me -- sleepily stared out the window trying to parse this. . . this land we were looking at. We had gone to sleep in the traffic and heat of Bangalore, and suddenly there was rain on the windows and the day was dawning over palm trees, kelly green rice fields, and hazy mountains on the horizon.

I think there must be something innate in humans where we try to associate where we are with some schema we have in our brains. This was kind of Florida (the palm trees) and kind of Iowa (it was amazingly flat). But then, well, there were the roaming bands of pigs. And the rich terracotta red earth, the women sweeping of their front (dirt) hearths with straw brushes and then drawing white geometric patterns on the ground to signify the home's purity, the Garden of Wisdom and Research Institute (???), and various tiny huts advertising internet access. Oh, and my favorite, a huge billboard in the middle of a rice field proclaiming: "Theme park coming soon." Nothing particularly Floridian or Iowan about it.

So, the next step was to try to associate it all with things more exotic-- i.e. things I've seen on screen. Next thing I know I am imagining Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Predator. Then to shake that image I suddenly switched to the episode when all of Sesame Street went to Hawaii (Mexico?) and the mountains turn out to be a giant snufulufagus. I ask you. How does this stuff get lodged in a girl's brain? I gave up.

But, damn, is it gorgeous here.