Emma Retakes the Blog for Odisha part II

After many hugs, high-5s, and handshakes we left the smiling (and very colourful, once we'd finished Holi'ing) kiddos of New Hope Community for a lengthy drive to Taptapani. Every village we went through was full of (almost exclusively) young men in various shades of red, yellow, purple, etc, either still throwing powder at each other (or Daisy the truck) or washing off in the local ghat or river. Holi is a really joyous celebration and one I'm truly glad to have celebrated in India. There are coloured powder-throwing events in London but I don't imagine it's really the same - much as Simon and I enjoyed our "Run or Dye" 5k last year. 

 By the time we reached Taptapani the heat had struck me down and sadly I was too tired and headachy to make use of the palatial spa part of our multi-roomed bathroom. Laura tries to ensure that when possible everyone at some points gets a single room, but as a couple our special treat was the honeymoon suite of the government-run Panthanivas Taptapani guesthouse (probably the very room Sonia and Rajiv Gandhi stayed in during their visit). Tragically underutilised in our case as I spent most of our 18 hours there in bed nursing a heat-induced headache, missing breakfast and unable to summon the energy even for a shower, much less filling the enormous Romanesque tub. The next morning I did make myself join the group for a wander down to the small village to see the one sight, the famous public baths, next to the sacred springs. The Bath of England this is not. There is a men's tank and a ladies tank, and tank is definitely the right word- small concrete tubs filled with filthy water. I dipped in a couple of toes, and then went back to enjoying the sacred tree and rather flexibly erotic carvings of the attached temple.
   
Friday's drive took us to another coastal village, Gopalpur, where we stayed in a dive called the Mermaid Hotel. The pain wasn't lessening so again I lost most of the day to lying in bed. Finally I convinced myself that the sea air would be preferable to the mustiness of the room, the feel of the sand would be an improvement to the board of the bed, the views of the village might be more pleasant than staring at cracked paint, and late afternoon outdoors would be cooler than the sauna the bedroom had become. It was definitely the right choice, as Niranjan led us on a fascinating walk (which I was too busy experiencing to document photographically). We walked along the beach for a while, which had none of the Western-catering shops and restaurants of Palolem or even the tourist-focused seafront of Visakhapatnam- it's very much a working stretch of sand, covered in little shacks used by those ekeing out a living catching small prawns and tiny fish. After an hour or so on the sands where the men work, repairing their nets and hauling in their catch, we went into the village. Even by Indian standards (the country looks like it was designed by Lisa Frank there are so many bright colours on every temple and sari) this was a particularly colourful village. It was also teeming with life- the sort of happy smiling community that people have false nostalgia for. Laughing children sat piled out of doorways, a different book on each lap, taking lessons from volunteer teachers. Dogs and pigs and chickens and the odd cat all scurried about, and we were followed by a growing collection of excited kids who found the game of saying "hello" and shaking our hands as much as possible endlessly fascinating. Many residents came outside to chat with us (the standard of English was quite good) and we complimented their brightly painted homes. On one of the streets a man was pushing a food cart along, stopping it whenever a customer flagged him down. Having not eaten all day, I immediately ordered chat, a made on-the-spot bowl of lentils, veggies and fried crispy bits. Pretty damn filling for the equivalent of 20p, and Patrick quickly determined a few bites of mine weren't enough and ordered his own. This was the most pleasant, natural and un-awkward village visit I've had yet, in part because it never felt forced or like we were just there to stare at each other. People noted the surprising presence of 8 foreigners on their street and then happily got on with their lives. Though most of the villagers depend upon fishing for their livelihood and doubtless make little money, this walk didn't have the "poverty tourism" feel that some other visits have had an edge of. And despite forgetting my camera, I have the strongest visual memory of that village.

Lovely locals aside, there wasn't much keeping us in Gopalpur so Saturday morning we hit the road again (after a filling breakfast that cost about 35p in a hole in the wall cafe), bound for Puri, where we were reunited with WiFi, aircon and a pool for a fabulous three nights.

Our 5 days in the Odisha tribal areas were a very unique experience. It is eye-opening to see how so many people still live in such a comparatively archaic way, very isolated from the wider world. Watching the potters at work in Goudaguda, seeing bartering in action for spices, vegetables and dried fish, or knowing that mentally challenged children are still abandoned by their families, it's easy to forget that it's 2016. For those of us from Europe and Australia, we pass through and share a moment of our lives- the villagers going about their daily activities and us observing, perhaps even interacting if we engage in some commerce or a chat. For a brief moment we see a man throwing a pot or a woman selling bangles, then we move on, privileged in our ability to explore any corner of the globe we put our minds to, whereas for people here, this is what the majority of their lives will consist of. No luxury of a career change, no liberty to try out different religions, unlikely to ever leave the state, when the weekly market is their main interaction with anyone outside their immediate village. The difference between those of us who flit around the globe till it feels small,  changing aspects of our lives on a whim, and people whose reality moves in a tight radius, is a regular dichotomy in many travels, but particularly stark here. As Patrick has mused on in other posts, the romanticised - almost fetishised - vision of "the rural life" is naïve at best, undoubtedly contains an element of racism, and keeps people oppressed at worst. Why should people live without clean water, literacy, or the ability to see at night due to an electricity hookup because we think it's charming to have an image of village life fulfilled? On the flip side, rapid development can be dangerous. Niranjan discussed how since getting a decent education, many young people from villages have decided they're too good for the farming life and have gone to the city to make their fortune- only to plunge into urban poverty and end up swelling numbers of the slums and begging on the streets, without the social structure of their home community or family support. How will these tribal regions change in the future, as the effects of government policies are seen? So far it looks positive- organic farming is encouraged so hopefully the horrendous cycle of dependency on pesticides, fertiliser and seeds from western agribusinesses which have caused so many thousands of farmers to commit suicide in the north will be avoided. The government has also pushed maternal health, so with a vastly improved infant mortality rate, the birth rate has also decreased to about 3 children per woman. Unglamorous as it is, the country cannot survive without farmers. Minding the goats and ploughing the fields hundreds of miles away from anywhere built-up doesn't quite have the appeal of a salaried IT job in the city, and therein lies the rub.

Alas, the answer is not to be found in the late-night ramblings of an Anglo-American blog. We return to our regularly scheduled descriptions of temples and witty observations of fellow travellers when we return, in the Puri post!

Note: The Orissa week of our journey was with Dragoman, but run by a local company, Grass Routes, which specialises in this region, delving into the cultural heritage and interacting with the local daily life of an infrequently visited area. If their other guides are half as competent as Niranjan, they're doing well!

Orissan Odyssey (part 1)

Ok, we're back in internet contact, after several days of exploring the tribal areas of Orissa/Odisha/Orisha or whathaveyou. There are a LOT of transliterations, and I have no idea which are correct. Actually, we've had internet for a few days now, but we've been in Puri, and the days have been absolutely packed. I'm writing this on the train to Kolkatta/Calcutta, since this is the first downtime we've had.

There is a lot to cover, and I'm sure I've forgotten all the interesting bits, but I'll do my best to make these posts worth your while.

We left Visak and headed north and west, into the less densely populated state of Orissa. Backinaday, it was the trading empire of Kalinga, with outposts and connections all the way east to Indonesia, before Ashoka, the first real Emperor of India, conquered it in a sea of blood in the 2nd century BC. He felt bad enough about it to convert to Buddhism, so I guess that makes it all better, but it feels like the damage done has never quite been healed. Orissa is way less developed than the south, and is the eastern border of the main tribal areas (which are underdeveloped as well as dangerous, thanks to Dacoits and a lack of government presence). Our guide for the duration was Niranjan, a lovely guy whose ability to get along with everybody we met came in handy on many occasions, and whose English was fantastically good. 

We started off seeing a tribal market on the way to a small village named Goudaguda (you won't find it on the maps), where we stayed at a guesthouse run by an Ozzy named Leon. The market was fascinating - there were sellers of dried fish, cheap plastic bangles, metal pickaxes and toothpaste all jostling for space and attention while children, goats and cows ran through packed crowds. We decided to try the palm wine - the local booze of choice. It was tasty, but when we tried to pay, the seller refused our money. So we got free booze from a desperately poor woman that would have cost us about 10p. I'm still conflicted. 
 The guesthouse was fabulous, the food was the best we've had in India, and there were fireflies in the forest just outside the garden. In addition, we were in the hills, so the weather was much nicer - so cool at night that it was possible to be a bit chilly in the mornings. After the heated horrors of Andhra Pradesh, it was a wonderful respite.

Our second day there, we went on a hike through the area, seeing pottery being made in our village, walking across hills and through small ravines, jumping creeks and being astounded by the number of Eucalyptus trees. Niranjan explained that farmers were planting them in large numbers for the paper industry, despite the environmental problems this causes - it drains the soil pretty quickly, and will be a big problem for an agricultural area in the future. We saw large termite hills (Emma had seen way bigger in Tanzania, but they were still impressive to me), and sat in the shade of corrugated tin roofs as Niranjan ran us through the various tribes in the area and the role the government is playing in integrating their members into the modern economy.   I'm of two minds about this development. On the one hand, something is undoubtedly lost when tribal societies are subsumed into modern capitalist economies. Social diversity is good, the brutality of competing in such a huge market is daunting and old ways of life get dissolved. On the other hand, fewer babies and women die in childbirth, and people live longer and receive education. And of course, given an education and a choice, most village people flee for the cities - and I'd do the same. I don't want them to live in the village for my own aesthetic considerations, because that's absurd, but neither do I want people forced into modernity for my ideology. Thankfully, my desires have exactly zero impact on what happens in India. Hooray for irresponsibility!
 
On the third day, we left Goudaguda for the New Hope institute - a charity that offers medical care to tribal villagers for thing like leprosy, cataracts and such, as well as free schooling and housing for abandoned children. These kids are mostly special needs, either due to trauma or mental retardation. They are also absolutely lovely. We got to meet them at their school house, where they showed us around the school and to their dorms, and we chatted as much as possible. One girl, whose mother was the cook, had receive a head injury when she was five, preventing her from storing any new memories. Two boys had severe cases of cerebral palsy. The kid who looked after me was named Tuna (nickname) - he had lost both parents in a fire and was burned across his face and left hand. He was about 15 years old, and already handsome. We got on well, and talked a bit, and I ended up giving him my hat when we left - it looked better on him than on me anyway. :) 
 

We also got a lesson in cooking Dosa from the cook - we each made a dosa (much like a crepe) on the skillet while she showed us how to make a delicious (and very sweet) tomato curry to go with it. While we ate our dosas afterwards, we watched Orayan TV - there was an insane soap opera involving a goddess (I think Laxmi) a demoness (the actress chewing the scenery with vigour) and some very fine turns by the men's facial hair. We are still debating precisely what on earth was going on.

Our fourth day we left New Hope, but not before getting to celebrate Holi with the kids. Holi commemorates the victory of the Gods over the demons (this happens a lot in Hindu mythology), but has a nice twist to it. The story goes that one demon-child went good - acted virtuously, behaved righteously, and thoroughly rejected his father's claim to be Lord God of the Universe. The father was pissed, and tried to kill his son, but the Gods kept intervening to save his life. Finally, his aunt, a demoness named Holi who had been blessed by the gods to never be burned, offered to grab him and walk into a massive blaze. The gods of course simply transferred her blessing to the kid in mid-conflagration. And so every year this is celebrated by everyone throwing coloured powder at each other and shouting and laughing and screaming. It's really lovely, utter insanity of the origin story notwithstanding, and it's celebrated without regard to religious profession.

It's also an example of how India is starting to change, culturally. Tradition dictates that widows, who are expected to renounce all pleasure for life and to live utterly apart from family and loved ones, are not allowed to take part in Holi. Last year a group of widows went and celebrated in a temple, right in front of the Brahmins (priestly caste). The government's insistence that caste has no place in Indian society has made it possible for people to start redeveloping older traditions in more egalitarian ways, and I hope this helps break down the sequestration of widows the way that Sati was broken previously.

Well, this entry is long enough, I think. I'll pick up later with our adventures in Taptapani, Gopalpur-on-sea, and Puri. 

On the Road (again)

We return to our regularly scheduled blogging with our heroes chilling out in the beach city of Visakhapatnam, in the northern part of Andhra Pradesh. This is our last night with internet for the next 6 days, so please don't panic when our slipshod, poorly-constructed and increasingly erratic posting schedule is interrupted - we will just be sweating to death in Orissa.

We left Chennai heading towards Tirupathi, a town famous for its location at the foot of the Tirumala hill. So why is the hill famous? It's one of the four holiest hills in Hinduism, with a massive temple on top dedicated to Venkatishwara, aka Lord Vishnu. The monastery boasts no less than 5000 visitors at any given moment, and often far more, for daily crowds of 40-100,000 people. More people visit here than Mecca, possibly. Pilgrims wait for hours, slowly twisting through labyrinths in the heat, past endless security checks and up and down stairs to file, en masse, past a doorway through which can be seen, in the Sanctus Sanctorum (which cannot be entered by anyone other than Brahmans) the idol of the god.

How do I know this? Because that's precisely what we did. :D

First of all, we didn't do it entirely properly. We didn't walk up the thousands of steps for 40km up the hill, like you're supposed to, to even get to the start of the line. And we didn't stay in the vast set of guest houses maintained for pilgrims (who have just walked 40km uphill in the heat). And we had posh passes that let us avoid some of the queue. But we did wind for 2.5 hours through the maze, got swept along with the mass of pilgrims (many of them pressing, poking and knuckling our backs), and ate prasad (free temple-blessed food given out to everyone who makes it through the gruelling process) with the best of 'em.

It was ... an experience never to be forgotten. Also never to be repeated. There were no grand religious epiphanies, no instant conversions, no sudden moments of peace and tranquility. But there was the brute fact of being part of a wave of genial, friendly, and excited people all swelling towards the same destination. Conversations sprang up with other pilgrims, babies would be recognised as their parents moved past you, or away from you, and reappeared suddenly in a different section of the queue, and lessons were learned about keeping your attention on when to expect a step or ramp from what happens to the people ahead of you. It was a lot like Disney World in that way. :)

The driver was kind enough to stop on the way backdown the hill at one of the stations along the pilgrimage walk - a gigantic statue of Hanuman, the monkey god. Because there is a monkey god. And his name is Hanuman. He's actually the semi-main character of the Ramayana; he aids Rama (an incarnation of Vishnu) in rescuing his wife from Ravena, the demon-king of Sri Lanka, and already you're getting confused, so let's just leave it at 'Monkey God.'  That awesome enough.

The heat was actually pretty bearable, both because Emma and I have been acclimating like champs, and because the altitude meant that it was in the high 20s (mid 80s, Fahrenheit). Back on the plains, though, it was ugly. And so it would remain the next day during our insane day of driving (420km, and about 10 hours). By midday, the heat was so high that the breeze coming in through the windows of the truck didn't cool us off - it was like living in a convection oven. We stayed that night in Vijayawada, in a hotel with aircon (praise Vishnu), and that's the most interesting thing about Vijayawada.

That not entirely true. Let me tell you about our dinner. Lovely meal, Manchurian Mushrooms for me and Dal Palak for Emma, but nothing to write home (or indeed, blog posts) about. What was interesting was the service. You may have noticed that the absurdity of the waitstaff at Indian restaurants has been a running theme here - even at the amazing truck stop here we had lunch (in a building stretching across the highway with ultramodern decor and lovely food), the waiters were clueless and the food came out at odd intervals. Vijayawada, however, took the cake. The waiters (there were at least five for our one table) brought food on one plate, scooped a portion onto another plate (which we are off), moved our plates around to accompany more plates, and did everything but work our forks for us. I honestly believe they did this because they had literally nothing else to do - when we tried to do things for ourselves, I swear to you they looked disappointed.

They still brought out the lime soda 1.5 hours late.

 The next day was another long drive, this time to Visakhapatnam, where I write this now. Emma and I took a long (3 hours) walk around the joint, up the entirety of the beach and through neighbourhoods, revelling in the cool (low 30s) afternoon - Vijayawada was upper 30s (nearing 100 Fahrenheit) yesterday - and looking for a place to buy sunscreen. Being near the sea makes all the difference, a thought that scares the crap out of me, since we leave tomorrow for tribal Orissa, which is decidedly inland.

For dinner, we, Vincent, Steve, and the new Liverpudlian Johnny, went out to some Italian restaurant Vincent found on trip adviser. It was called 'the Flying Spagetti Monster'. I'm not kidding, there's a libertarian-owned Italian restaurant in Visakhapatnam named after an American satirical internet joke, and the food is AMAZING!!!!  This was, quite simply, the best Italian meal we've had, outside of St Petersburg, Russia. And we've been to Rome and Venice, so this is not for nothing. I had farfalle Milazzo, Emma had spinach ravioli con funghi porcini, and we split a spectacular chocolate pudding called 'the bomb' for desert. And it certainly was.

But the biggest shock was the waitstaff. They were good. I mean damn good. They were polite, efficient, swift and personable. Not obsequious, not humble, just competent and professional. They did my old waiter's heart proud, and we tipped accordingly. There has to be a reason for the difference between FSM and literally every other restaurant in the country - maybe they pay well enough to attract good waiters, maybe they train the waitstaff, maybe Visakhapatnam is just that cool. Whatever it was, we are very happy travellers right now.

Of course, we get up tomorrow at 5:30 to head off into the malaria infested rival regions of Orissa. We're on anti-malarial meds, were still packing at 11:00 at night, and we've got six nights without ac to look forward to. But we had a good night tonight, and that's what counts.

Chennai... blah.

"Chennai has neither the cosmopolitan, prosperous air of Mumbai, the optimistic buzz of Bangalore or the historical drama of Delhi. It's muggy, polluted, hot as hell and difficult to get around. Traditional tourist attractions are few. Even the movie stars are, as one Chennaiker put it, 'not that hot.'"

So begins Lonely Planet's introduction to the city, and after 2 nights, I'm not in a rush to disagree, though I would add (if they're looking for contributions to the next edition) it literally smells like literal poo. We've luckily escaped now, but I suppose our stay there does need to be documented.

Upon leaving Mammalapuram our first stop of the morning was at the Crocodile Bank!
They had hundreds of crocs of breeds from around the world, and actively encourage conservation. I admit to giving no more than a cursory glance to the American alligators, having seen more than enough growing up. The real thrill was when the snake section opened at 10am and we saw the local snakecatchers cooperative do their stuff - pulling various hissing and thrashing snakes out of clay pots and letting them slither around the pen. The men in there (wearing little protection other than wellies) didn't seem very bothered about the multiple fast moving cobras continually raising their hoods, hissing and lunging at anything that moved. The Russels viper stayed curled up asleep, though a 10-day old saw scaled viper had a bit of a wiggle around. The handlers passed around a sloughed off piece of dried shedded snake skin and everyone quickly agreed that was enough and never in a million years would they pet a live cobra. Yet- when the handler scooped up one of the hissing beasts we all reached out a tentative finger and gave its tail a little stroke. These snakes are not simply attractions though- every week or so they are "milked" for venom, which is sent to local hospitals to create antivenom. They collected the venom from one of the snakes while we watched, getting it to bite down into a waiting vial and the amount of liquid collected is substantial. And also terrifying.

Sadly though we had to leave the snakes and crocs for the far less interesting and exceedingly smelly city of Chennai. It's like LA or Miami - miles and miles of faceless sprawl, with no apparent centre or draw. Just many stagnant bodies of water sharing their fecal fumes with the traffic. However, we tried to make the most of our days there and shortly after checking in to the Hotel Pandian we walked down to the Government Museum.

Walking in Indian cities is no mean feat. When a pavement does exist, it might just be concrete slabs in general states of disrepair balancing menacingly over open sewers. Whatever pavement might exist is more often than not completely taken over by street vendors and their wares, dogs, trees, people sleeping, men pissing against the wall, piles of gravel and/or rubbish, etc. In most cases it's best to just walk in the road anyway and let all the motorbikes, scooters, tuk-tuks and buses swerve around you. This mentality is the only way to cross a road in India as well. The traffic never abates - you just have to take a deep breathe and walk straight through the enormous chaotic roundabout or across the highway and know that the drivers expect this and adjust accordingly. We still prefer to latch onto a local and stride across with them. Never scurry- it shows fear!

Even short (<2 miles) walks in Chennai offered plenty of opportunity for us to fine-tune our street crossing skills. Having made it to the Government Museum, we figured we'd stay a while, and it was closing time in 2.5 hours anyway, so we thought it shouldn't be difficult, as the ticket allowed entrance to all 7 different museums in the complex. That was before we realised how stifling the heat and humidity became after too many galleries. The Hindu and Buddhist sculpture and architecture was beautiful and incredibly detailed, but we've seen so much of it in its intended place, which feels very different from the bland institutionalism of the museum, which appeared to have been designed in the 1950s and not updated since. Shoving antiquities behind glass isn't enough to create any sort of engagement with the past. After several rooms of natural history  (mostly consisting of rooms of badly taxidermied mammals - including a honey badger - and invertebrates that appear to have been sealed in formaldehyde pre-independence) we thought that perhaps the art gallery might have cooler galleries. In the main museum, only 1 gallery had aircon and even the fans had petered out when we were deep enough in the bowels. So we marched across the complex - stopping en route at another building displaying puppetry and ethnology - for the art museum. Any ideas that perhaps paintings would be kept in a potentially more climate-controlled environment were quickly dashed. Hottet and more humid than outside. This is not the way to preserve one's national heritage. Before leaving (Patrick looked in serious danger of fainting) I had to know what the Hologram Gallery was. Turns out the museums acknowledges it doesn't have the funds to securely display its collection of treasures, but rather than just show photos, which can't convey the items' depth, they made holographic pictures, which are on display to show gold necklaces and such. Original solution to a lack of funds. It is a tricky question- what to do with historical artefacts in countries without the resources to properly protect them.

We had a similarly disheartening experience at the museum of Fort St George the following day. Apparently it's the most interesting attraction Chennai has to offer, but the idea is better than the reality. The Fort was built up by the East India Company from 1653, and still functions as a working military base today. Though quite a casual one, as no one seemed to mind 2 English, 1 Australian, 1 Belgian and 2 dualies (new Armshaw epithet) wandering around once we decided the museum was only fascinating for those with a real military bent. We wandered the base for close to an hour looking in vain for something vaguely interesting - a rampart? imposing walls? cannons? We did go in St Marys Church, which does claim to be India's oldest surviving British church (1680), but I came out to discover a bird had shat directly inside of one of my shoes, whilst it was deposited at the entrance. This is becoming a theme.

In our group of 6, there was some half-hearted discussion of going to Marine Drive and walking along the beach, but the noonday sun was making a mockery of us, so we tuktuked over to a massive gleaming AIR-CONDITIONED shopping mall. Not the sort of thing we'd generally find ourselves doing on holiday or in real life, but the heat has been stifling and prevents any normal level of activity. Patrick and I decided to catch a screening of the Hindi film "Neerja," which Shiraz recommended when we were in Mumbai. I'm glad we waited till Tamil Nadu state though - people speak so many different languages in the south (not necessarily Hindi) there were English subtitles! It was a really excellent film and deeply moving - I was sobbing!

Chennai was a time of change for the group - the end of one leg in which we said goodbye to the Canadians, the two English ladies and most of the Australians and picked up 3 new passengers (all English, we finally outnumber the Aussies!) for the next leg.

Our new little group of 8 had a nice cheap dinner near our hotel (complete antithesis in every way from the awful experience of our final meal of the other leg the previous night) and caught an early night (ok, not that early, "Skyfall" was being shown on tv) ready for a 6am wakeup to get on the road to Andhra Pradesh.

Pondicherry to Mammalapuram

Quick! Back to the Ocean!

We resurface in Mammalapuram (aka Mahabalipuram), a town on the coast of Tamil Nadu, just south of Chennai, and the penultimate stop on this second leg of the journey. More importantly, we're back on the shore, where the torrid heat of the dead of winter is balanced out by the cool breeze off the Bay of Bengal. It's still hot, don't get me wrong - it's just no longer a blast furnace.

Yesterday we left Madhurai (set as always to 'slow roast') and travelled down the road to Pondicherry, the capital of French India. What's this? You've never heard of French India? Mais oui, il existait, et il était fort et fière and it totally got taken over by the Brits like 9 times in the 1700s. Currently the French influence is restricted to a profusion of bakeries, some pleasant and not at all impressive colonial houses, and the red képis worn by the police. Interestingly, there are four non-contiguous cities that make up Pondicherry territory, making it completely separate from Tamil Nadu, governmentally. I know, I know, you want to hear all about federal governance in the Indian Union. Well too bad! Let's talk tourism.

In Pondy (as it's known locally), we found the first neighbourhood to walk around in that felt pleasant, as oppose to exciting and foreign. Unlike most cities, where dirt and dust and trash and cows and shit are everywhere, Pondy had clean streets and trees. Trees on a road make all the difference - the air feels cleaner, and the shade is intoxicating in this environment. There are of course plenty of parts of the city that are more characteristically Indian in this regard, but having such a nice neighbourhood by the seaside made a world of difference.

We spent the day wandering along the shore (the blue water breaking against the stones of the strand making it clear just why Pondy is a tourist hotspot for les Français), eating soft serve ice cream from le Club and taking in la place de la république, with its 11ft tall statue of the Mahatma, and its less impressive statue of Nehru. We walked past the Aurobindo Ashram, one of the more popular ashrams for western travellers. We found a chemists to buy shampoo, a beer shop to buy Heineken (not Kingfisher for once!!!) and a takeaway joint to buy pizza, the last two of which we consumed on the second floor terrace overlooking Mahatma Gandhi boulevard. It was relaxed, unhurried, and almost boring. The perfect opportunity to recuperate from Shri Minakshi.

Today we drove a short way up the coast to Mammalapuram, the capital of the Pallava dynasty in the 7th and 8th centuries. Its ancient (1400 year old) temples stand unfazed by time, tourists, Mughals and even the 2004 tsunami. We saw the Sea Shore temple, which stands by the sea shore) before our Tuk-Tuks took us to see the five Rathas: five monolithic minitemples named after characters from the Mahabharata. In one of them, the acoustics were amazing; I chanted 'Aun' and it felt like the very air around me was shaking.

Finally, we went to see Arjuna's Penance, a massive cliff carving showing the hero Arjuna, of the Mahabharata, standing on one leg in front of Lord Shiva in order to earn a weapon with which to defeat an army of demons. Seriously, India had Lord of the Rings before it was cool.  While the statues and carvings are all beautifully conceived and executed, my personal favourite is a cat standing one legged, surrounded by rats. He was standing so still, in the story, that the rats forgot he was a threat to them. Whereas Arjuna is depicted almost entirely emaciated, the cat has a clearly full belly. :)

Afterwards, we regrouped back at the hotel. Emma went off for an Ayurvedic massage that, in the words of its less scrupulous practitioners, can cure everything from sore backs to paralysis. Emma having done some serious yoga in Varkala, she definitely earned her oily kneading. Meanwhile, Vincent and I headed to the hotel bar, where over (unknowingly absurdly expensive) beer and calamari we talked about everything from reading people to history to the new Star Wars movie (which he still hasn't seen and which I refuse to spoil for him).

Then it was off to le Yogi for dinner - after all the pizza I was delighted to find a Greek salad on the menu, and what's more, the restaurant was actually capable of serving it to me! This is enough of a rarity (and not just with Greek salads) that it merits mention in our blog.

Tablet update - the tablet is being taken to Kolkata by courier. It should arrive in 3-5 days. I think it's being taken by Tuk-Tuk. Either that, or the courier is unclear on how courier services are meant to operate. :)

Tamil Nadu Natterings

We have let you down.

For the last three days, gentle readers, you have asked yourselves 'where are the Armshaws? Why have they not posted their whereabout on their tour? Why are we asking these questions in a totffy accent?' Well, I can answer thusly: in Pondicherry, because our tablet is gone (for now), and I have no idea, respectively. Seriously, you sound conceited, you should probably stop talking like that.

Since leaving Kerala, we've gone into a new state, Tamil Nadu, home of the Tamils (natch) and major homeland of conservative Hindu culture. There are tons of temples here: gorgeous, colourful and intense in ways you don't expect. Hindu temples stand out from mosques and cathedrals, in their relationship to the market. Cathedrals, these days, are pretty standoffish from buying and selling - maybe it's the cultural memory of Jesus in the Temple of Jerusalem tossing money changers out on their collective asses, or of Protestant horror at indulgences and the like, but market-based activities are confined to gift shops and rosary stores in your more traditional Catholic churches. Maybe a sappy picture of Jesus holding a lamb or a small child, but that's about it. Mosques you'll find nestled gently amongst stores and (halal) butcher shops - the meeting house is part of the community, after all, and communities have trade. Nothing shameful about selling, but the mosque itself is a place of God. In Hindu temples, on the other hand, the deals are coming from inside the house. Not only can you buy pictures of Gods and Goddesses, major and minor, prayer beads of sandalwood (or at least a reasonable approximation, since sandalwood is illegal to harvest) and offerings, you can buy toy guns, snacks and a blessing from the temple elephant (trained to nuzzle the generous and ignore the gawkers).  That said, it costs nothing to walk around staring at the carvings and pictures, even if non-Hindus are barred from what they call the Sanctus Sanctorum (Latin for Holiest of Holies - don't ask me why they use Latin when I'm sure there's a perfectly good Sanskrit word for it). Anyway, more on one temple in particular later.

Our first stop in TN was Kanyakumari, otherwise known as Cape Comorin - the southernmost tip of India, and the confluence of three major bodies of water: the Arabian Sea to the West, the Bay of Bengal to the East, and the Indian Ocean to the South. Obviously, the place is exceedingly holy, and obviously there is a temple there. Fun fact - men must remove their shirts to go in. Unrelated fun fact: photography is strictly banned. We spent our day walking beside the sea side, past thousands of pilgrims and middle class families on a day out, and joined them in wading out into the small patch of sand that allows you to touch the waters. Unlike everyone else, we didn't go fully in, although we were the only ones with swimsuits, everyone else just splashing about in jeans and khameezes. That doesn't mean we didn't get wet, though - just as we were crossing the narrow concrete walkway towards the beach, the biggest wave of the day came slamming into shore, destroying any hope we had of keeping our shirts dry or of keeping our selves above the fray. Instead, we waded into the surf, and watched the waves drive up the sand and crash into the rocks, taking children and teenagers for short rides backwards and forwards amongst squeals of laughter. It was really lovely.

Afterwards we watched the sunset (Ok, we watched the sun until it disappeared into the omnipresent haze, about a foot above the horizon - the haze is serious business in this particular subcontinent) and then swung by the Gandhi memorial next door. It's a lovely building, with Hindu, Muslim, Christian and Sikh elements blended together, which we know because the director of the memorial himself glad handed us on our way in and insisted on explaining this to us while taking a series of indifferent pictures of us awkwardly standing next to, touching and for all I know defiling the urn that once held the Mahatma's ashes. Then he manoeuvred us into a dark corner before hitting us up for a donation to the orphans of the Tsunami, which went directly into his pockets. I think he was the director. He had a uniform and a whistle, at all events. And those orphans are now 12 at the absolute youngest, but we surrendered some money all the same.  At least he spent some time yelling at children to be quiet.

Afterwards, we grabbed a small, but obscenely cheap dinner from a local restaurant, and then went back to the hotel room for an early night. After all, we were getting up early, at 6:30, to see the sunrise!

We woke up at 4:30. Actually, everyone on our tour woke up at 4:30. Actually, everyone in town woke up at 4:30, because the Catholic Cathedral just down the street was blasting Hindi Christmas music over speakers loud enough to wake the dead, before a service that was also blasted over loudspeakers loud enough to wake the dead. Of course, the Hindu monastery on the island just off shore, dedicated to Swami Vivekananda (a Hindu mystic from the late 1800s who had meditated on an Indian Renaissance and united Hindu mythos with notions of social justice) just had to retaliate with overawing loudspeakers of its own, blasting out chants and prayers and songs and an air raid siren, as is only proper.

I admit, there was a time when I found the muezzin an annoyance. Why should Muslims have the right to call the faithful to prayer at 6am, even when people who are not their coreligionists might be inconvenienced? Church bells might be subject to the same complaint, and fair enough - such seizing of the public space is a touchy affair, after all. Once I had these objections: no longer. The muezzin might wake you up at 6, but only for about 10 minutes, and really, is 6am really such an uncivil hour? In contrast, 4:30am is a war crime.

At least we did get up in plenty of time to see the sunrise! Or at least, see the sun rise above the aforementioned haze in the distance. It was very peaceful. Aside from the loudspeakers and air raid sirens. Then we popped down to the hotel restaurant for a quick bite at 7 before we hit the road at 8. We ordered at 7:05. My omelette arrived at 7:45, Emma's Dosa came at 7:53 (and was COLD) and our coffee never arrived at all. That's after it took the waiter 10 minutes to tell us that they couldn't serve us a pot of coffee, as the menu stated, but could only do two cups. Also, they could not make scrambled eggs on toast. I would have to buy an omelette and toast. Also, my knife, which I got 5 minutes after my omelette, was the second filthiest knife in India. I checked - there were no hidden cameras.

I should probably explain something. My wife, my friends, my family will vouch for this: I am not quick to anger. I'm laid back, easygoing, forgiving of others their faults as I hope myself to be forgiven. This goes double at restaurants, having been a waiter. But oh my brethren and sistren, I was angry. After all, the fools at the restaurant had taken up our entire morning, so that we had only two minutes to finish packing before heading down to the truck. So when I crossed the street to the tiny coffee shack and was immediately confronted by a sunglasses salesman literally coming up an blocking my path shouting 'my friend' and waving sunglasses even while I was wearing my sunglasses I snapped and shouted 'absolutely not!'

So should the world beware my wrath.

After a long drive up through TN, we arrived at Madhurai, a town which is hot (37 degrees, feels like 1,000,000), dusty, humid and holds one of the most impressive Temples in all of Southern India, Meenakshi. I'll let the pictures tell the story - our guide told us too much to relate here. Due to my shorts, I was given a dhoti to wear to cover up my legs - they at the height of fashion, and cool to boot.

By the time we got back after sunset, the horrible truth had set in. The early morning, the long drive, the incredible heat and the blazing sun had overcome my defences. I was getting a migraine. It came on slow and steady, and I thought I could tough it out through dinner, but I was wrong. I left the table after an hour, just as my food was arriving, took a painkiller (which dulled the pain enough to fall asleep) and fell asleep. After such a hellish day, when very thing that could have gone wrong went wrong, it was a good nights sleep.

...


Oh crap! We left the tablet in Kanyakumari!!!!

Varkala has been bloody brilliant

It's our third and final night here (as of 11 March, finally writing in real time!), and it will be hard to leave beautiful and peaceful Kerala and its very successful communist ways. I've felt so much more at ease here, in part because the near-constant gawping and less-than-subtle photograph-taking has almost disappeared. At face value, Varkala seems quite similar to Vagator, the first Goan beach we visited post-Mumbai, but it's been so much more enjoyable.

After a short drive from the houseboat, Dutchie parked Daisy in the local helipad, nose about 2m from the cliff edge, looking down to the sandy beach below. As we pulled in, what do I see but a man elegantly paragliding over the cliff and gracefully landing on the helipad. Adrenaline junkie that I am, two hours later I was getting strapped in next to him and floating over the beach. I was expecting to take a heart-pounding run to jump off the cliff, but instead the wind just gently lifted us up and away, as I kicked my flip-flops off to the tarmac beneath. I felt in 100% safe hands, and immediately trusted Aurel, the man I was flying tandem with. As we glided the air waves high above the coast he told me how he was controlling the glider. Maybe it was because I eventually asked him "Vous-etes francais?" and we had a short chat in his native language, but I think he took a shine to me, and we definitely stayed up longer than the promised 15 minutes. He had learned to glide in the Alps and immediately became addicted - he's been living in Varkala 8 years taking people up tandem, or just gliding solo because of how much he loves paragliding, and it's easy to see why.  After some time of slow and gentle gliding, he asked if I wanted a bit more speed. I agreed to be scared and we immediately started swooping, dropping and spinning. Despite the stomach-lurching speed and twists, it was clear he was in perfect control of the glider. We went zooming over the waves, soaring up the cliff and gently glided high above the beach. The most perfect moment was locking eyes with an eagle that was floating on the same air current as us and feeling as free while we had the same view from flying. Given the money and opportunity, I could easily form an addiction to this particular adventure sport, above all others.

Sadly, finances didn't allow me to soar over the beach and sea all day every day, and the heat was so brutal on Thursday that we spent most of the daylight hours alternating between the pool (which was like a too-hot bath, and only refreshing when getting out of it) and the air-conditioned room. Luckily at 5pm Emily (who actually has initiative and inertia, which we were both lacking) encouraged us to join her at an open-air rooftop yoga class on the cliff. Who needs Enya CDs when you can hear waves crashing on the sand below you? The view of palm trees was certainly better than the whitewashed walls of Lewisham Leisure Centre, where I normally do yoga. After 90 minutes of breathing, stretching and posing (including a few minutes of jealousy at Patrick's ability to hold a good headstand), I felt invigorated and inspired to find a yoga session in every city- surely especially useful after long drive days.

Today - our last full day in Varkala - was really special. Before flying to India, mom put me in touch with a friend she knew from when they lived in Nigeria, working as teachers 40 years ago. The Matthews live just over 40km from Varkala, so this morning Patrick and I steeled ourselves for our first journey via Indian public bus. We needn't have worried- once it actually departed (50 minutes behind schedule), the ride was docile enough, and blessedly air-conditioned. I'd looked at Google maps while still on WiFi, so the map stayed up even without internet, and through a combination of staring intently at business signs (which occasionally include town names) and following along Highway 47 on the phone's map, we managed to jump off the bus at just the right spot, and then walk 2km to the Matthews' beautiful home. London living has apparently warped my sense of house sizes, because it felt like a mansion to me, though Sosa insisted it was very small compared to her children's homes in the US. Even though Sosa hadn't seen mom in decades, she and her husband gave us an incredibly warm welcome. Sosa had cooked up an absolute feast of typical Keralan food from the local Syrian Christian community. I wish my stomach was big enough to manage third and fourth helpings of everything, but sadly anatomy halted my feasting after round 2. The 4 of us barely made a dent! Eating with locals is the best way to know what goes with what, and how to eat properly. We never knew poppadoms should be crumbled over the mixed vegetables! Dessert was Baskin Robbins ice cream (very popular in India!) and a cake made by a local cult, who also have a bakery. They may be very insular (and a bit deluded, as they left the body of their first leader on a roof, thinking he would rise up, as he claimed to be the reincarnated Christian god), but they can bake!

Sosa told us about growing up in Alleppey (growing rice, raising cows and buffalo, and cooking for 30 people every day, between the large family and day labourers!), the 28 years she and her husband spent in eight different cities in Nigeria, and their life back in India, living in Sreekalyum since the late 1990s. Their children and some of Sosa's siblings moved to America and have become wildly successful. She has family in Nebraska, Florida and Illinois, all doing very well, and it sounds like their grandchildren (now in high school and university) are very clever with bright futures ahead too. Due to their advancing age and deteriorating health, they want to be close to family and have made the difficult decision to sell their home in Kerala and move to Omaha. Sosa's sadness at losing the community of friends in the neighbourhood of the home she's lived in the last 20 years was obvious, and she's putting off the move to the US for a few more months. I feel so fortunate to have been put in touch with such warm and kind people, and to have met them at their wonderful Kerala home. 56 years of marriage looks good!

They generously paid for a Tuk-Tuk driver friend to take us to Thiruvananthapuram (formerly known by its admittedly simpler colonial name Trivandrum) where we were dropped off at the railway station. Once we'd successfully purchased tickets, we stepped out of the booking office just in time to see the heavens open and we experienced our first Indian rainfall. Genteel London drizzle it is not, but neither was it monsoon level. After over a month of dryness, the smell of rain was gorgeous and provided a cool breeze for our 45 minute train journey back to Varkala. What a lovely way to end our week in Kerala, "God's own country."

Cruising Alleppey Backwaters

The last few days have been so supremely relaxing, you'll forgive us for only just now catching up on the blog. This is Em typing now, and though there's plenty to relate, don't expect the length, political insight or historical detail of Patrick's last two entries.
He left off with us departing the heat and incompetent Tuk-Tuk drivers of Kochi for the backwaters of Alleppey. Three beautiful houseboats awaited our merry group and we jumped on board with fellow Brit Julia (don't tell the others, but she's my favourite of the newbies who joined the truck in Mumbai), Aussie nurse Emily (one of the brave few doing the full Kathmandu to Kathmandu circuit) and our leader\driver team of Laura and Dutchie. The next ~20 hours were near-perfection. The boat had 3 en-suite twin rooms and a lovely covered deck, furnished with a dining table and 6 chairs, a divan and two armchairs, from which to enjoy the views in shaded comfort. As we drifted down a fraction of the 900km of Kerala's waterways, I felt only the gentlest of rocking, which at one point in the afternoon sent me into the deepest sleep I'd had in days, whilst lounging on the deck's sofa. Alleppey's backwaters seem to hold an infinity of coconut-laden palm trees and enough banana trees to form a republic (and keep the Bluth family in their millions, because as we all know, there's always money in the banana tree stand). The greatest moment of excitement came when a bird swooped past the captain, flew through the deck straight past Patrick's face, and dropped a piece of fish right next to him. Along with sacred rats scurrying across his feet and the cow nuzzling him in Jaisalmer, this is going on the list of fortuitous animal encounters.

The lush surroundings are home to many more people than I expected - who must at some point eventually become bored with having Paradise for a front garden. We glided past ladies scrubbing clothes in the river at the base of their front steps, a group of boys playing cricket in a rare bit of land more solid than a rice paddy, fishermen who'd jumped out of their canoes to cool off in the river, and even a Catholic school on the shore (whose ornamentation included a popish looking saint shaded by a lotus flower). One enterprising local saw our approach and sped over in his motorboat to sell much-needed ice cream to us over the side!
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Another stop allowed interested parties to buy fresh seafood - Julia brought some prawns on board for our boat's cook to fry up for her dinner. Houseboats are clearly big business for the surrounding communities. We saw a couple more houseboats silently pass with western passengers aboard, but it's clearly also a popular pursuit for Indian holidaymakers, as far more boats passed us booming with Hindi pop and cheering groups of men jumping and dancing, fully enjoying their booze cruises.  Our more serene journey moored at lunch time for the first of three huge and spectacular meals.

At dinner time, the three boats drew up next to each other, allowing us to leap between. We sort of traded Dutchie for Vincent (who was on the Aussie men's boat) in order to play Monopoly cards. Our bug spray tried valiantly to keep the mosquitoes at bay, but it was comforting to see a veritable army of geckoes literally come crawling out the woodwork of the boat to grow fat on all the flying beasties drawn to our lights. Eventually humidity and bugs sent us all to our respective cabins, where we were delighted to discover the aircon had been switched on (though less delighted when we were all freezing several hours into the night, when we realised we couldn't adjust the 19 degree setting). How temperamental our bodies are! Extremes of temperature aside, the cabin was comfy and I slept wonderfully. We had a short post-breakfast sail the next morning to bring us back to the starting point and we were in Varkala by lunch time.

I'm not great at relaxing - I'd rather do anything than lie around on a beach - but many days on this trip are teaching me the beauty and necessity of relaxing. It was perfect on the boat to just switch between staring at miles of palm trees gliding past, reading (loving the Nigerian novel I'm on at the moment, Half of a Yellow Sun), watching kingfisher birds dart into the water, getting a few postcards written, and moving from railing-side padded benches to divan to dining chair to armchair, sometimes just sitting quietly holding Patrick's hand and marvelling at how different our life is now than a year, or even a few months ago. For 5+ years, springtime Tuesdays used to signify hours of faculty, staff and student meetings, resulting in suddenly elongated to-do lists - what a magnificently deliciously different way to spend a Tuesday.

And all that before we even got to the delights of Varkala.

Kochi Consternation

We left Wayanad on the 6th, heading down a ridiculously twisting mountain road towards Kochi (formerly Cochin). I'd heard a lot about Kochi, of course. First the Portuguese, then the Dutch and finally the Brits had colonised the area, but even before then Kochi had been a center of the spice trade, apparently going back to Roman times. Chinese fishing nets, large pulley-assisted fish trapping apparati, testifies to trade coming in from the east, while the oldest synagogue in India, claiming to have been founded in 359AD, testifies to western connections as well, but the biggest testimony to Kochi's place as a global crossroad, in my mind at least, is the fact that St Thomas (disciple, buddy of Jesus, and professional doubter) actually visited Kochi and set up a church here in 59AD. This church kept rolling along even after the rise of the Islamic Empire cut off India from western Christianity, until the Portuguese, presumably somewhat baffled to find a bunch of Christians living at the end if the world, tried to claim headship over them. It went over about as well as you would expect.

With all this history, and a whole city to walk around in, Emma and I were seriously looking forward to Kochi! But all the while, an enemy was gathering strength. This fiend, subtly but brilliantly, had been dogging our heels for weeks, but we were only now to realise the full extent of its power and influence. I speak, of course, of the Sun. *dramatic lightening flash* Our time in the mountains had been warm, no doubt. The lack of aircon had necessitated behavioral adaptations (night showers, constant battles over where to draw the line between having the fan be loud as sin and having it be effective at moving air, etc), but we had managed and even learned a thing or two in the process. We were ready. We were prepared.

We were wrong.

The heat here is something else again - omnipresent, sticky and wet. The sun is brutal too: the one day I didn't slather myself in sunblock I got nastily burnt on the back of my neck and on arms as well. Pools help, but only when the sun hasn't boiled them above body temperature, which usually happens by 2pm. And this in the dead of winter: I cannot even begin to imagine what summer involves, or how people survive.  Our hotel in Ernakulam (across the bay from Kochi) had no airflow, no aircon, and the loudest fan in Christendom. Since nighttime temperature dropped maybe to the mid 80s, neither of us slept very well, and both nights you could see Dragoman refugees sitting in the lobby (the only air conditioned room in the hotel) until the wee hours. I may be a little tiny baby when it comes to heat,  but by God I wasn't the only one.

Kochi itself was cool, if a bit underwhelming. Partly, this is because we're seeing it a month in, after the Taj, Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur, Ratkore Temple and Udaipur: the most impressive mausoleum, fort, temple and city in India, respectively. We did visit the old Synagogue (probably not actually founded in 359CE as per the claims) - the inside was beautiful, but no photography was allowed. Vee, an Israeli-Ozzy member of the tour, helped me translate some of the Hebrew inscriptions, and it was amazing to see evidence of Kochi's strikingly cosmopolitan past. One easy mistake to make about India is to see it as Terra Incognita between Alexander's invasion and the Portuguese incursions; in reality, it was precisely Kochi's links to global trading networks that made it worthwhile for the Portuguese to start seizing bits of territory along the way to the spice islands.

The cultural highlight was seeing a demonstration of Kathakali dancing - a 400 year old art form that looks suspiciously like Japanese Kabuki, and that mixes incredibly finely crafted facial expressions with body movement, drumming and singing to tell 9-hour-long stories of gods and demons from Hindu mythology. We got a 2 hour introduction and sample, and while several of our fellow travellers left early, having severe cases of philistinism, we really enjoyed it. The makeup alone was worth the price of admission, and the quick change, when the beautiful lady transformed into a wicked demoness (both played by a man in drag, of course) was suitably impressive. The Japanese children's tour group was remarkably well behaved - that is, the children were. Their adults, on the other hand were apparently keeping up a running commentary and discussion group in the back row, enough to cause the fair maiden on stage to give them an impressively crafted stink eye.

We walked around the city the next day, ate a lovely lunch at Fusion Bay with Vincent (the gigantic Belgian) and Emily (the lovely Ozzy), and wandered through the backstreets during the afternoon call to prayer back towards the ferry to Ernakulam We quickly realised that all this walking, while normally healthy and informative, was closing in on lethal, and we hightailed it to a severely Western-style shopping mall to bask in the air-conditioning and catch the 7:30 showing of Spotlight, this year's Best Picture winner, about the Boston Globe's uncovering of the sex abuse scandal among Catholic clergy in the city. The investigation started off a mass revelation in city after city, state after state, and country after country of similar horrors, all predicated on the higher ups deliberately concealing, protecting and shuffling to new dioceses abusive priests. The effects on the Church's moral authority are obvious, and are a big reason that someone like Francis could end up Pope - the conservative wing was too heavily tainted with scandal to even allow Ratzinger (ex-Pope Benedict) to remain in office much less keep control of the institution. As we walked out, stunned and angry, Emma asked me what the Church has actually done to keep this from happening again, and the answer is, of course, I don't know.

Dad was a priest, before he met and married my mom, and I grew up with a strong but critical relationship with the institution. One of the best things my Dad did for me was to explain that the Church isn't just the Pope, or the bishops, it was the laity as well - wrongdoing by the higher ups doesn't destroy the institution any more than criminal politicians destroy my faith in democracy. All it means is that the people on the bottom need to reclaim and reform and purge the corrupt when necessary. Because when the higher ups won't allow that necessary action, that's what weakens and strains and breaks the institution. Like Watergate - it's less the offence than the cover-up. And seriously, Cardinal Law should have been thrown in jail.

On our way back, we decided to take a Tuk-Tuk, as a special treat. Sadly, the Tuk-Tuk drivers who mobbed the mall entrance were not only dishonest crooks, they were incompetent at being dishonest crooks. They stood around as a group, baffled by our map of the city, swearing up and down that our hotel .5 km up the road was in fact on another island, and 50km away, and would cost us at least R400 to get there. I can handle crooks - crooks want money, and a good crook at least has to win for you to lose. When I was pickpocketed on a train to Budapest, while sleeping and with my wallet in my jeans and my jeans still on my legs, the thief not only didn't wake me, he took the cash and left the cards. With talent like that, it's hard not to be appreciative.  A lifetime of movie con-artists has taught me that professional criminals have a certain claim to Honour. It's crooked idiots I cannot abide. Obviously, we walked.

We left Kochi the next day, headed to Alleppey for a night on a houseboat to cruise the backwaters of Kerala. As for how that went, I'll leave that story to Emma...

Kerala Communism

Morning Mist in Kerala

The 5th was our one month anniversary in India, a feat only slightly less impressive than our six year anniversary in matrimony, on the 4th. But this is Armshaws on Tour, not Armshaws in Love, so I'll spare you the sappy details. We spent the day leaving Mysore and Karnataka state behind as we headed to Wayanad National park, on the border of Kerala, India's southernmost and successful-most state. Kerala famously elected the world's first democratically chosen communist government in the 1950s, and the two electoral coalitions governing the joint since then are the Congress-led UDF and the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led LDF; so center-left versus far left. Since then, land reform, infrastructure spending and a focus on education have meant Kerala now has life expectancy 10 years higher than average, infant mortality one-fifth the average, and near-universal literacy. Even the rare stray dogs are pleasant and well fed.

The road to Wayanad was long - like 12 hours long - and we were famished when it was time to stop for lunch. Fortunately for us, we were in Kerala, and we stopped at a fantastic bakery where we ate our fill of samosas, veggie puffs and sandwiches, with more stashed away for the road. The prices were crazy low, making the astoundingly beautiful new-build houses all along the road even more inexplicable. Seriously, communism has been good to Kerala: there was little poverty to be seen, and a ton of middle class living to be found on the road to Wayanad.

When we got to the park, our first order of business was a 3km hike up a mountain to see the Edekkal cave drawings: these are 6000 year old pieces of art in a cool ravine on top of a mountain. I've literally never seen anything approaching that old. Stonehenge is a parvenu by comparison. The pictures show stylized people, including what appears to be a shaman or headman, animals and geometric patterns, and it is incredible to think of how long ago it was in human terms, and how short in geological terms.  The ravine is ceilinged by a massive boulder that got sandwiched in between the two walls; this happened recently, only 1,000,000 years ago or so. Also, the shade and breeze were a welcome break from what were otherwise boiling temperatures. That last bit is gonna be a leitmotiv in the next several posts, I'm guessing.

On the way back down the mountain, we stopped for Emma to realise a dream - no, a need - of which she has long dreamed; for years she has looked on in silent longing, but been prevented from taking part by fate, chance and outrageous London-level prices. But here, in the Western That mountains of Kerala, at a kiosk on the edge of a huge cliff, Emma's dream was to finally come true.
FISH PEDI!!!

After she finished squealing (with joy and squickiness), she said that the fish did quite a good job. Admittedly, the doctor fish missed a bit of her heel, but her feet were left smooth and silky, and ever so slightly clammy. Score one for symbiotes.

After collapsing back in the truck, we were taken to our home stays for the night. Having done one in Peru (Raqchi) during our last Drago adventure, I was expecting a room in someone's traditional shack. Instead, we got a room in someone's gorgeous newly built middle-class two-story house. A family in the area has basically been pooling its resources to build nice houses for themselves and rent them out to companies such as Dragoman. The money comes from the fact that the members have good jobs (one was an ear, nose and throat doctor) and the matriarch's cooking would not be out of place in a surprisingly refined home-style restaurant. They fed us beautifully, and the relatively cool weather (high 80s rather than low 90s) in the mountains made the lack of aircon  bearable. I hope they make a killing.

One thing missing was a shower - so we finally had to come to grips with bathing the Indian way. Basically, the whole shebang revolves around two buckets, one very large and another very small. You fill the large bucket (in my case) with cold water, then use the smaller handled bucket to pour water over yourself. Get yourself wet and cool, then scrub up, then pour water over yourself to wash off the suds. On a hot night after a lot of hiking, it's just about ideal. So much so that, at our next hotel, we skipped the shower entirely to get busy with the buckets.

One thing the home stay was definitely not missing was kittens. There were about 8, including three that were only 2 weeks old. Emma was in heaven, of course, and I admit that there were certain sounds, almost like childish squeals of joy and adorableness, that emanated from somewhere around me. I do not care to speculate on their origin. We spent most of our time with three juveniles that we named Slinky, Spiglet and GI-GAAAAAN-TOR (not their real names), who vacillated between nibbling our fingertips and ignoring us utterly. Such is the way of kittens. I blame the internet.

That night, after a wonderful meal,  we sat around the table in the, well, not cool but at any rate less hot, of the evening playing the Monopoly card game with Laura (our fearless leader), Julia, Emily and Vincent. Luck was with us both - after days of failure and loss, I won the first game and then Emma skillfully won the second. Flush with victory, we did the only possible thing; we hit the buckets and went to bed.

The next day was given over to a tour of the area given by our guide, Bibim. We got to walk around a local village and see rubber and coffee trees, a local shrine to Kali (the terrifying incarnation of Devi who demands blood sacrifice and wears a necklace of demon skulls), tiny carnivorous plants, and a local family building a goat shack. After that, we saw a school for working with bamboo (we bought a cool mask for the wall) and a waterfall that, while still impressive, is possibly more impressive still during the monsoon when there is a lot more water about. We saw a Syrian Orthodox shrine (which was also curiously home to the village's tug-of-war trophies) and tried our hands at a tug-of-war against the forces of gravity.We walked through a tea plantation on the mountainside, ate fresh grapefruit just off the tree, and finished things off with an exceedingly uncomfortable 'tour' of a local tribal village that mostly consisted of us standing around staring at, and being stared at by, a bunch of people who are effectively being paid to act as an exhibit. The tribe is being integrated into the Kerala economy, education is given free, and houses have been built, but the tradeoff is to have a busload of tourists being brought in every other day to stand about gawping. Neither of us like to gawp.

For me, one part of my discomfort with things like slum tours and the like is the suspicion I get that most of us tourists react in one of two ways: either dismissive superiority, marked by asking questions such as 'well why don't they get better jobs', or wistful regret at the passing of a more authentic culture. The first is bigoted, but the second is more insidious: when you get down to it, its wishing people remain poor, sick and uneducated in order to have space to express discontentment with modern life. We can make a better world without throwing out all that we've learned as a species,  and the poor are not more authentic than the middle class, they're the middle class without enough money.

Anyway, enough haranguing the audience. Our next stop is Kochi (Cochin), capital city of Kerala, a mélange of Malaya, Portuguese, Dutch, British and even Jewish influences all centered around a millennia-old spice trade. How cool and breezy it will be beside the seaside! How wonderful  our hotel is sure to be! How heavily can I slather on the foreshadowing! Let's find out!

TEA!!!!

Don't worry, be Hampi (from Mysore, not an eye-sore)

All the ruins and palaces and forts and temples have long ago started blending together. As such, despite Mysore being undoubtedly full of beautiful architecture and wondrous religious icons, we've sequestered ourselves away on the 5th floor of Hotel Parklane, gin in hand, rooftop pool beckoning, to wile away the afternoon hours, rather than fitting in more sights. On lengthy tours, taking some time to relax and recoup is just as important as checking off another "must see" from the Lonely Planet. Guess my thighs won't get the workout of climbing the infamous 1000 steps to the nearby Chamundeshwari Temple. Lest you think we are utterly wasting our time in Mysore, I assure you we fully enjoyed the two hours of the morning spent wandering around the Palace. The maharaja lived in utter splendour here, enjoying all the pomp and regalia of being king, until the region became part of the republic of the newly independent state of India in 1947. The Marriage Pavilion and Durbar were especially gorgeous, but you'll have to take the virtual tour, as no cameras are allowed inside. The wood carvings and endless marble inlay were astonishing, but even though it's now illegal, it was upsetting to see how much ivory was used until recently. Ivory decorations on a houda (seat for dignitaries to ride in style on the back of an elephant) were particularly depressing. There were two mounted elephant heads flanking the east gate, but apparently shortly after poaching them, the maharaja recanted his evil ways and became head of the World Wildlife Protection organisation. Though that magnaminity doesn't seem to have extended to banning the horrible practice of keeping elephants in captivity, as two were chained up outside waiting to give Rs.20 "joy rides." I'm sad that these elephants in chains were the first Indian elephants I've seen in the country. Since going on safari in Tanzania and seeing so many majestic beasties run wild in the huge open plains where they belong, I can't bear the thought of zoos. Though I realise refusing to see animals except in their natural habitat is an awfully privileged stand to take, and I'll probably never see a tiger in the wild (fingers crossed for Chitwan).

We got in to Mysore about dusk yesterday, after a 12 hour drive from Hampi. We stayed across the river from Hampi Bazaar (where the city of ruins lies) in a village called Virupapur Gaddi- unfortunately the worst accommodation yet! Normally the trip across in the boat with an engine costs 10 rupees, but miss the 5.30pm cut-off and you'll be haggling with the rower of a vessel that looks like half a coconut shell (called a coracle) made out of palm fronds (Vincent eventually managed to book passage for 200 rupees, down from the initially quoted 1200). We thought we'd left the hippies on the beaches of Goa, but even though we were on the relatively quiet side of the river, the cafés and shops were full of white people with dreads and too-colourful loose cotton clothing and Om tattoos, each undoubtedly having a unique and soul-affirming spiritual "experience." And - God help us - reggae cafés with drum circles.  Hippies (and my judgmental nature) aside, the ruins of Hampi were incredible. Tuesday morning, we took the (cheap, engine-driven) boat over and joined our Tuk-Tuk drivers. Vincent and I at first feared we were just being coddled as too-lazy tourists needing transport up the hill- however a city once home to half a million people at its peak is a fair size (26 sq km!), and the drivers took us several kilometers from the river to a far off side of the city, before coming back stop by stop to see many highlights of the great city (heyday 14th - 16th Century). The guide showed us the Vittala Temple (with its musical pillars and stone chariot), Queen's Bath (impressive feat of plumbing engineering), Zenana Enclosure (with its stables for 11 elephants and housing for 11 handlers, and Lotus Mahal for the ladies), Hazararama Temple (some of the best stone carvings we've seen, which "narrate" various stories), the Lakshmi Narsingh Temple (6.7m monolithic statue of Vishnu) and ending at a fairly impressive monolithic Ganesha statue.

After a fantastic lunch at the Mango Tree (popular name for eating establishments), we climbed up Hemakuta Hill for a stunning view over the only remaining working temple in the ruins, Virupaksha, before returning to "our" side of the river.

We had a restorative break back at the hotel, then Patrick and I headed out to the rocky hills with a young guide, a crash mat, a bag of chalk and very tight shoes- time for bouldering! The only climbing I've ever done has been at indoor climbing walls, carefully colour-coded for ability. In the wilds of nature, you just use the natural (sharp granite!) ledges the boulders provide. Luckily our "beginner" boulders had just enough grip we were able to scramble up on the first or second try- though some of the tougher ones required young Arjuna to give our backsides a bit of a push to gain the momentum to reach up to the next grip. It was an exhilarating way to gain views over the rice paddies and river to the ruined temples beyond. And a much needed use of our muscles, after slowly atrophying from too many hours in the truck. After a particularly tricky boulder (resulting in Patrick lying prostrate like a lizard at the top and me nearly crying because I didn't want to jump), Patrick finally released his beet red toes from the climbing shoes and bought some chai off a waif roaming the hills while I scrambled up the last few boulders before my aching fingers (and sore ankle from an unfortunate jump) called it quits as well. Arjun gave us a lift back to town on the back of his scooter (me sandwiched in the middle, Patrick on the back, wearing the crash mat on his back) and I started to seriously regret not learning how to drive motorised two wheel vehicles at some point.

The local restaurants entice punters in by advertising a different film each night- offerings like Napoleon Dynamite, Blow, Captain Phillips, Forrest Gump, Into the Wild, etc but we decided to steel ourselves for The Revenant, justifying the plan that two hours of cold and misery is more easily watched in an open café, warm air around us, hippies lounging and smoking, etc. I'm happy Leo finally got his Oscar, but Tom Hardy was actually the standout performer, the film as a whole was over rated, and the bear scene wasn't nearly as brutal as it was made out to be. Had a nice Thali whilst watching, anyway.