Namaste, friends and family!
So we’ve spent another week at Visthar, and I finally wanted to tell you about my vacation last week!
Vacation began on Friday, October 22. I decided to travel up the southern part of Kerala with my friends Britanee and Erin. We headed to the train station at 8:00 at night. When we travel, we usually travel 1st Class Air-Conditioned because that way we are guaranteed a place to put keep our belongings (all of our travel packs). For our vacation, we reserved a sleeper car because our trip to Trivandrum was estimated to take about 16 hours. When we arrived at the train station in Bangalore, there were hundreds and hundreds of people on the platform waiting for the train. That weekend was a Hindu festival, and so many people were traveling home to visit their families for the weekend or traveling elsewhere for a short vacation. When the first train pulled up (this was not our train), we could see that it was absolutely packed to the limit. The recommended capacity in unreserved cars is about 90 passengers; there were probably at least 200 people in the 2nd class cars. The people inside had closed the door to keep others from entering because it was so packed, so even before the train came to a halt, there was a flood of people banging on the train doors and shouting for the people to let them in. Even the train police banged on the door but they would not open it. Women and children had absolutely no chance of boarding the train. A few minutes later, the train whistle blew, and it began to pull away from the station. There were still scores of people shouting and pushing, trying to hold on to the bars that covered the windows and the bars adjacent to the boarding door. But to no avail. The train quickly disappeared, leaving men, women, and children, mostly of the lower classes, behind.
Now let me tell you, sleeper cars in the trains in India are not like sleeper cars in America. In America, you would have a separate compartment in a car that has a door and a curtain to cover the door to ensure privacy. But here, the car is completely open. On one side of the aisle are two beds parallel to the windows. On the other side of the aisle, there are three-tiers facing each other, perpendicular to the windows. The beds fold up during the day, and everyone can sit on the bottom bunk, blue vinyl with the minimum cushioning. But we had no problem boarding our train, because we had reserved tickets. When we boarded at 10:00 PM, everyone in the sleeper car was already sleeping, and we discovered that our beds were the three top bunks, so we had to quietly push our bags up over our heads on to the bunks, crawl up, and make our beds while sitting in them. Sitting in the top bunk, we could not even sit up straight. I have this mental picture of Britanee sitting across me, legs crossed, head squished up against the ceiling, not sure whether to laugh or cry.
We arrived in Trivandrum at about 3:00 on Saturday afternoon. We spent a short time in Trivandrum eating lunch and visiting a cottage industry emporium, and then we hopped onto a bus to take us to Kovalam, where we would be staying. Kovalam is right on the beaches of the Arabian Sea. Our hotel in Kovalam, the Blue Sea, was very nice, with circular tower cottages and a pool.
(I’m running out of time to write so detailed a message, because we have to leave in a few hours and I have lots to do before then! So I apologize if this is short or incomplete for now.)
We spent a few days at Kovalam Beach. The water was amazing, and the waves continually beat against the shore and the rocks nearby. There were dozens of fishermen’s boats lining the shore, sorting fish out of their nets and preparing to embark on another outing. When we walked along the beach at night, we saw small areas in the sand that glowed from the phosphorus in the sand. (That’s the extent of my scientific knowledge!) We also stumbled upon lots of fragments of jellyfish in the sand–they were clear in color, but had the consistency of, well, jelly.
Our time at the beach was amazing, but by the time we left, we had acquired a pretty negative attitude towards young Indian males. They would stroll along the beaches in hopes of getting a glimpse of white European flesh. All fine and well, that’s somewhat understandable, but it’s a whole different dynamic when they began taking obvious pictures of their friends, situated with white women in the background. And then there’s those who don’t care to seem inconspicuous; they openly take photographs. We had befriended a white young man, about 25, who had grown up in Goa, and several Indian men went up to him and asked if he could get us to take pictures with them. Abhaya (our friend) recognized our disgust and told them in a not-so-kind way to leave us alone. In America we value our privacy so much, even in public places. Here, privacy doesn’t exist at all. The worst was when a young man walked by with his camera about waist level, facing us, and as he passed, his camera shifted to his side, then to his back, so he could continue taking a video of us. He would have been pummeled if he had done that in California or in Florida.
After a few lazy days at the beach, we took a bus to Kollam, where we boarded a ferry that tours the backwaters of Kerala. The backwaters are absolutely beautiful. At parts, the water was lined on either side by the complex Chinese fishing nets, many of which had been idle for years, I think because of the amount of pollution in the water, the water traffic, and a result of overfishing in the past.
The next evening, we rented a houseboat that also took a tour of the backwaters. We had wanted to take the houseboat from Allepey to Kochi, but, contrary to the information we gathered in our guidebooks, they did not offer that service. But we really wanted to do the houseboat, so we just did a short overnight tour. The rest of our vacation we spent in Fort Kochin. Fort Kochin is a popular tourist destination, so we met several other Americans and Europeans. One of the nights in Kochi we went to a traditional Kathakali performance. I will try to send pictures soon so you have an idea of what the performance was like, but if you’re curious, check it out on the internet. It was so amazing! The costumes are so detailed and beautiful, and the dance movements are equally impressive. My favorite memory of Kochi would be hanging out with our rickshaw driver, Rinu. We met Rinu after our dinner following the Kathakali performance. We decided to get a rickshaw back to our hotel, and we wanted to trade what was left of our bottle of wine for a ride. The wine in Kerala was awful, so we were excited to get it off of our hands. Rinu agreed. We got to chatting with Rinu and learned that the rickshaw drivers get commission for bringing tourists to handicraft emporiums. So, we made a deal with Rinu that we would visit a few emporiums for him if he would drive us around for free. It worked out well for both of us! Anyways, we told him how we always wanted to drive a rickshaw, so he asked us if we wanted to drive his, and of course we said yes! So we each took it for a spin in Kochi. And, (sorry mom and dad!), the next day he let me drive his car. Which, if you anything about the roads in India, there really are no road rules and basically size is the determining factor in who gets to go at the stoplight, but we were safe and had fun.
I found the best chocolate in all of India in the Chocolate Cake at the Kashi Art Cafe in Kochi. It was a godsend.
Okay, that’s all for now. I’ve got to go! This afternoon we leave for a field visit to a Jain community in Karnataka. We will spend four days there, come back to Visthar for one day, and then we fly to the North, where we will visit Udaipur, Varanasi, New Delhi, and Agra, home of the Taj Mahal.
As always, I hope this email finds you in good health and high spirits. My best to you all.
Love and peace, Linds~