Fort Cochin to Goa

Album for Cochi and Goa
KochinAndGoa

After the cool mountains of Munnar we took yet another bone-crunching local bus back to the coast to the old Dutch colonial city of Fort Cochin.  We are meeting some very interesting people on this trip—and surprisingly few Americans.  In Cochin we hooked up with three terrific Brits in their late twenties—Jamie, Peter and Man-yee (a pretty Chinese-Brit) who have been wandering around south India for about a month.  They are on a pretty leisurely pace and enjoying themselves thoroughly.  It assuaged some of the guilt we occasionally feel about not spending every waking moment running from temple to temple. Sometimes it’s nice to just sit in a café and watch India flow by.

We took our first overnight train north to Goa, about halfway up the coast between the southern tip of India and Mumbai.  It is the only first-class coach we were able to book in advance and it was pretty sweet.  We shared the compartment with a medical doctor from Cochin on his way back to his job in Jaipur.  We disembarked at Margaon station in Goa at 10:30 am; his journey continued for another 28 hours.  We hope he found as charming companions as us on the remainder of his journey.  As if.

Goa was originally high on our priority list as we planned our itinerary months ago.  When Roger traveled through Asia by bus in the seventies (east with Linnea, Brent and Barry; west with Delaney) everybody was going to Goa.  You could take the Magic Bus from Amsterdam to Delhi for less than $80 and it was known as the Junkie Trail—dope addicts and hippies of various stripes heading for the cheap beaches and drugs of Goa.  Everything you read and hear about it now is tinged with that nostalgia—“Goa is ruined.  It used to be paradise” but that is the same thing you hear about everywhere.   Apparently it has been pretty well polluted by Euro-Trash; probably some of the same people on the Magic Bus are still here.  The newest wave is Russian, and we hear stories of all-night beach bacchanals and dope-crazed techno parties, particularly in the beaches in the north of Goa.  The best travel advice we got was from Natasha in Alleppy, who recommended Agonda Beach in the south of Goa.  Still unspoiled, she said, and she was right.  We’re staying in a hut on a quiet stretch of isolated beach that has few tourists and just enough beach-side cafes and restaurants to make it comfortable.

Our newest best friend is Jes from Denmark, a charming and intelligent PhD student in physics.  His general knowledge and insights into American culture are astounding.  Maybe it just seems that way because we know so little about Denmark (we did score some points by acknowledging Nils Bohr’s contribution to quantum physics.  We’re still not sure how we pulled that bon mot out of our arses.)

We leave south India in a couple of days on our only domestic flight, from Goa to Udaipur to begin ten days or so in Rajasthan.  Like a different country, we’ve heard, and the travel will be more challenging from here on in. But until then, the beach beckons…

A few random thoughts we feel compelled to share…

In Agonda Beach, here in Goa, nearly all accommodations are beach huts. At the end of the tourist season every building constructed since 1991 must be completely disassembled. This leaves the beach open for Ridley sea turtles to lay their eggs. Next season, structures are rebuilt and the tourists return. Sounds like a lot of work since top rates are about $20 a day.

During the day, cows roam the beach. At night, pigs. Watch your step.

Indian trains carry 18-20 million passengers daily. At any given time, 6 million people are riding on an Indian train. How many rats? We don’t have those statistics.

Actual conversation:

Linda: “What day is it?”

Roger: “Wednesday. No, Monday.”

Our cheapest day so far- $13.53 at the ashram. Our most expensive- $105.00 on the all-inclusive houseboat.

On one tuk-tuk ride, our vehicle made contact with other vehicles TWICE. Yikes!

Indian traffic flow: I think of all the rickshaws, bicycles, pedestrians, trucks, busses, taxis, dogs, cows, and pushcarts as molecules of water flowing in a stream; they merge, they separate, they get where they’re going and somehow aren’t damaged in the process. I am ALMOST not afraid in traffic anymore. Almost.

For all the crazy driving we’ve seen here, there has not been a single incident of road rage, or even road irritation. The drivers are very mellow about their insane, no-rules driving.

We’ve been on the beach for 2 days now. I find that there are considerable stretches of time when my mind is totally blank. Meditation or stupidity? Who can really say?

We had planned to bring home charming souvenirs for each and every one of you, but so far we’ve seen mostly crap. Sorry. Are you interested in a Ganesha (elephant-god) T-shirt?

So far, this hastily-constructed beach hut has more reliable electric service that any other place we’ve stayed. Go figure…

Laundry: We have been washing our clothes in the bathroom sink with tiny packages of Tide. We considered splurging and having our wash done, but were advised against it. The locals don’t have washing machines and normally slap the soapy clothes against a rock (really). Friends who were in Mumbai (population 20 million) said the polluted shoreline is lined with hundreds of women washing clothes, including sheets from the HOSPITAL! If one of us gets sick, I’ll provide our own linens.

Did not realize how pervasive our American culture is. Over dinner last night, our Danish friend Jes discussed The Simpsons and Mad Men with us. Hearing that we are from Detroit, he knew immediately that the city was contracting due to population loss and that neighborhood farming was being discussed. The British folks know American music, TV, movies and politics as well as we do, and think Tina Fey is brilliant. At a restaurant the other day, we listened to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young sing as we ate. And we have seen way too many young Indian men wearing playboy logo shirts with their tight jeans. We didn’t have the heart to tell them they’re living in the 80’s. And many, many travelers from other countries look at Sarah Palin with amusement, horror, or confusion, just like us. So nice to meet kindred spirits!

Alleppy to Munnnar

album links:

Alleppey-- 

AlleppyBackwaters

Munnar--  

Munnar

 We arrived in Alleppey on the boat from Kollaam (via the Ashram) just at dark and we were whisked on a terrifying tuk-tuk ride to our pre-booked accommodation—our first homestay. It was a dump, even by Roger’s standards.  We didn’t bother unpacking and decided to search for better accommodations immediately. We got on another, more terrifying tuk-tuk and careened through crowded, loud streets until we reached an even dumpier dump. In a state of exhausted frustration, we just had the guy drop us at a restaurant mentioned in Lonely Planet.  It was nearly empty but we found a table next to two western girls; we were thoroughly spent.  Roger, using his travel-savvy experience, plunked himself at their table and begged pitifully, “You must help us.”

They turned out to be two lovely young Brits—Jane and Abbie—and they saved us.  They took us to their Homestay, The Bella City, gave us a much-needed orientation to how the town was laid out, and pointed us back to our dump. A homestay is supposed to be like a B&B where you get to experience Indian family life, but as close as we got was when Salim let us watch him and his family eat rice and curry with their fingers.  The next morning we got out FAST and went to Bella City, where we met Biju and his Polish wife Natasha, and everything clicked once again.  They set us up with an Alleppy Backwater Tour—the main reason we were there—and Natasha thrilled us with amazing tales of adapting to Indian life.  She had worked for a Polish tour company for several years and she knows India like the back of Roger’s hand (he actually uses the back of his hand to describe locations in India, much the same way that a Michigan native uses his “mitten”).

We were able to get on a boat that morning.  Biju escorted our tuk-tuk to the docks on his motorcycle, schlepped our bags, and introduced us to the captain and three-man crew of our small houseboat, The Eco Boat. Grant Jepson is a fifty-something yacht builder from the UK who spends six months a year in Alleppy, where he has built his own small houseboat in the Keralan style but he has also designed an eco-friendly water filtration and sewerage system that uses the local coir, or coconut fiber. 

He has been unable to get it certified by one of the Keralan state bureaucracies responsible for such things, though.  This is a big deal for the Alleppy backwater ecology, as there are hundreds of tourist boats plying these waters that dump raw sewerage into the canals daily.  But Grant couldn’t negotiate the required bribe successfully, and he’s waiting for state elections next month and a change of administration (Grant claims that Kerala’s own lab tests show his effluent discharge is cleaner than the water he draws in).  How Tragic!  Here you’ve got a woefully under-developed and primitive infrastructure in a brutally poor society, and you’ve got pay bribes to get the needed work done!  This reminds us…is Kwame Kilpatrick still in the state prison system, or have the feds got him now?

The overnight boat trip was spectacular, lazing through the backwaters on The Eco Boat, with meals cooked by the local crew served on board that was some of the best food we’ve had in India.  Just before dark we put into a small village where Grant and his crew had begun building the boat four years ago, and we spent an hour wandering through the village and the rice paddies.  The people were incredibly friendly—especially the children, who all wanted to practice their English and show off their knowledge of America (Obama is a huge hit here.  We even had an enlightened political conversation with a tuk-tuk driver the other day.  “Where you come from?  America?  Obama a great man!  Bush no good!”  It was one of those rare political discussions that had no arguments.)  We hope the Alleppy photo album, which may or may not be attached near the front of this post, does the amazing experience some justice.

Then on to the misty mountains of Munnar—high in the Keralan tea country known as the High Ranges.  We set out by local water bus—a 2 ½ hour journey on a dingy commuter boat.  Kerala state government is currently ruled by the Communist Party, and public transportation here is almost free, though certainly decrepit.  The boat ride cost us 10 rupees each—that’s about 22 cents, boys and girls.  Check out the photo album (also attached, we think) for Munnar and the incredible experience we had at Pavritham Homestay.  This was the real deal, with steps leading up from the back garden onto a for-real tea plantation, where we were free to roam the miles of manicured tea landscape, totally alone.  It was cool, it was quiet, and it was pristine.  And this is India!

The only misadventure happened when we were accosted by small dark man with a machete named Ghee who claimed to be Tata Watcher.  We don’t think he meant it in the American sense.  He was actually a watchman for Tata, Ltd., the privately held conglomerate that owns the auto industry, the cable company, the tea plantation, and apparently the rest of India.  You can see his fearsome visage on the Munnar album.

Next stop—Fort Cochin, back on the coast, then to Goa, which we hear is infested with thousands of stoned Russians.  We are heading to the extreme south—Agonda Beach-- which is supposed to be outside their main feeding area.

R & L Join Ashram; Promptly Resign

One of the best values in India (and there are many) is the public ferry that plies the backwaters between Kollam and Alleppy, an 8-hour trip through the jungle canals that costs about $8.00 each.   You can break the trip about half way at the Amritapuri Ashram, a high-rise compound that jumps out of the jungle like the scene from Apocalypse Now as they ride the river into the Heart of Darkness.  But the Amritapuri Ashram is a happier place.

Its guru is Amma, a fat black woman who presides over a colony of about 2000 permanent residents (as permanent as one can be on this transient plane, Amma might tell you) and a slew of devotees of lesser duration.  We disembark at the boat jetty with about a half dozen other tourists.  Among them is Vince, a 24-year-old kid from the UK who has been traveling around India on his own for three months.  The Ashram has made it into the Lonely Planet guidebook, so this particular road to enlightenment has been well mapped.

We proceed into the compound and are taken to the administration building, where they have a registration office.  It is not unlike a large hotel process, except none of the staff is surly and they have a space on the form for Spiritual Name.  “T-Bone”, Roger writes on impulse.

Linda has booked in advance so we are given a room in their equivalent of Married Housing.  Vince and the other new arrivals are shown to huge dormitory blocks.  All the newcomers are encouraged to attend a 5:00 pm orientation, and we are given a list of The Rules and then were free to wander around the grounds.  We run into Vince again, and we become good friends.  Vince had visited another Ashram earlier in his journey and had a disappointing experience.  “It was a bit of a cult,” Vince said (ya think?), operated by a couple of Italian swamis who ran it like a prison.  The worst was the Karma Yoga, where you were assigned menial, degrading and often filthy tasks that were supposed to build spiritual character or something.

Our Ashram was much looser, but we still had The Rules.  Respect the spiritual journey of the residents, so no small talk, eye contact, if you wish to greet another member use the prescribed Mantra “om namah shavaya” and absolutely NO PUBLIC DISPLAYS of affection.  We were also reminded that there should be no PRIVATE displays of affection either, have a little respect for the monks, people! And no hanky-panky in married housing, either.

Instead of Karma Yoga the ashram had “Seva” or communal chores, and we were instructed to report to the Seva Office for our assignments.  We decided instead to make it our special chore to avoid Seva altogether. 

Lining up to get a hug was the main activity and the big draw for this place. Amma’s darshan (the way she spreads her beliefs) is to hug people. So we lined up when it was our turn, as indicated by the numbered ticket we received when we arrived. Amma started hugging at 11:00 am, and it was our turn about 7:30 that evening. It didn’t turn out to be a big spiritual experience, buried as we were in her ample yet surprisingly fragrant bosom.  The old girl still smelled pretty good after 8 ½ straight hours of physical contact with several thousand people.

We met a couple of people who had lived at the ashram for several years, and a few that were there for a couple of weeks or a month or two.  Some were slavishly devoted to Amma and some were there for a spiritual vacation.  But mostly we hung out with the other ashram tourists.  We stood out like dogs’ balls, as they used to say in Australia.  We were the only ones not swathed in white gauze and you could detect a nicotine withdrawal twitch in more than a few of us.  Roger noticed a guy in the communal chow line wearing a yellow heart around his neck the size of a Frisbee that said “In Silence”.  But the guy kept having an animated and apparently hilarious conversation via pen and paper.  If you’re taking a vow of silence shut the hell up for Gods’ sakes.  And we all had a great laugh.  Belly laughs from the ashram tourists are frowned upon at Amritapuri Ashram.

Anyway, we decided NOT to move there and join the monkhood. We checked out early.  We resisted the impulse to buy Amma souvenirs, including Amma dolls, key chains, and postcards showing her feet (although Roger stole a couple of stainless steel communal tea mugs from the cafeteria.  Is there bad karma in that, we wonder?)  It was a pretty cool place, though, and we weren’t nearly as weirded out as we had expected. We boarded the boat the next day for our onward trip to Alleppey, and the backwaters of Kerala. Details, of course, will follow. Namaste.

Kovalam and Varkala Beach

 These might be picture links--

Kovalam

Kovalam

Varkala-
Varkala

Our first two destinations in India have been a very gentle introduction to this chaotic country. We’ll leave here tomorrow, but for the moment, we’re rested, relaxed, and mellow. Let’s see how long that’ll last when we really hit the road.

 Kovalam, our first stop, is a simple, somewhat funky  tourist town on a beautiful stretch of beach. A paved promenade lined with shops, restaurants, and hotels follows the curve of the bay from the lighthouse at the south end, to rocky hills on the north. Beach hustlers rent lounge chairs and umbrella for the two of us for 200 rupees a day- almost

$4.00. Fishing boats, covered with thatched palm leaves and with their nets drying in the sun, are strewn at the north end when they aren’t out working. These boats look very primitive – they’re made without nails and are held together with twine laced through holes in the wood. They must be sea-worthy since they come back every night.

Our hotel, Shirley’s Beach Hotel, is a simple one but has the necessities - ceiling fan, clean comfortable bed, bath, and balcony, all for about $17.00 a night. The view from the balcony is questionable; you need to position yourself carefully to avoid seeing the trash strewn about the public shared property. Getting there from our taxi was quite spectacular, though. Shirley met us at the road and led us through the lush jungle on pathways built up about 6 feet above the forest floor. The walkway was a warren of connecting pathways meant to confuse the timid traveler, with shops and restaurants hidden among the palms and orchids. Roger said it reminded him of Bali except the women weren’t bare-breasted.  It was different than anything I’d ever seen before. We really enjoyed our time in Kovalam and were in no hurry to leave. But when we did split town, we found our next stop, Varkala, even more to our liking.

Varkala beach is spread about a mile (or 1. 6 kilowatts or something in India-speak) along a cliff facing the ocean. Hotels, restaurants, bangle shops, yoga studios, thatched open-front stalls with brightly colored fabric and garments blowing in the sea breeze line the cliff-side path. The shore is mainly eroded and rocky, spectacular to see. The beaches, several of them, are reached via stone stairways along the cliff.  Our hotel, Woodhouse Beach Hotel, is at the north end of the beach, just beyond the line of shops. Beyond us, the walkway continues to the fishing beach where Roger helped fishermen pull in their nets one morning. The hotel itself is charming. We have a cottage of our own with a porch facing the ocean, which is where I happen to be sitting right now as I write. With me is Toast, the hotel’s dog, who has a pretty good dog life, as far as I can tell.

Tomorrow we head for an ashram for two days. How could we visit India and NOT visit one? It is the Amrithanandamayl Mission (yes, a real mouthful), the home of Amma, who shares her beliefs by giving hugs. Really. Seriously, I’m not kidding! We can use a hug as much as anyone. We’ll let you know how it goes.

Does This Bus go to Varkala?

We put this trip together on our own, which means that while we stole itineraries shamelessly from high-end tour companies, the actual arrangements were made by us.  And our itinerary is still pretty loose.  So we arrive in Udaipur, for instance, where we will spend about four days, and move on to Jaipur.  How we actually get from point to point is still a mystery, though.  And we have about a dozen such mystery movements coming up in the next two months.

Our first movement was Kovalam to Varkala, and we kind of considered it a shake-down cruise for what’s to come.  It did not go well.

The distance is only 83 kilometers (a quaint unit of measure used throughout India, I think), but it can take a long time.  Oh, yes.



Indian Tuk-tuk



We had it on good authority (the starched uniform of an official at the Kovalam Tourist Office, by Jove, sir!) that there was a single direct bus that left for Varkala at 7:30 in the morning.   So Linda and I were there in plenty of time at the taxi/bus/tuk-tuk stand.  We started getting a little nervous when nothing showed up but at about 8:00 an old rickety bus backed into the stall.  “Does this bus go to Varaka?” I asked.  The driver looked down and shook his head with the infamous Indian Head Waggle.

 

The Head Waggle (deserving of its own posting later on, I’m sure) is a method of nonverbal communication that has many arcane nuances that we have yet to master.  It can mean “Yes”, or sometimes it can mean “No”, depending on the inflection.  Or it can mean “I have no idea what we’re talking about, but I really like smiling and moving my head this way.”  So I ask again.  “Varkala! Yes!” he said , verbally this time. So we got on the nearly empty bus and off we rumbled.  A British couple we had met the night before had taken the direct bus FROM Varkala and said it was quite nice.  This bus was not quite so nice.  And when the ticket taker came by and I said, “Two tickets to Varkala, please” and he said “No Varkala.  Trivandrum” (referring to the capital city of Kerala state), I started to get suspicious.  Could this possibly be the wrong bus?  Could we have misinterpreted the head waggle?

So Trivandrum it was, honking through the four lanes of crowded traffic designed for two, where we arrived at the Central Bus Station, a chaotic stable of belching battered buses with a small office for “Enquiries”.  There was no one in line.  We would soon learn why it is a little-used service of the Kerala Bus System.

“When is the next bus to Varkala?” I ask.  “That bus THERE, sir!”  When does it leave?  “NOW, sir!” he says in a tone both earnest and urgent so Linda and I grab our packs and jump on the bus as it bounces out of Central Station.  The bus is even a little seedier than the first.  The ticket-taker came wobbling up the aisle and I again said, “Two tickets for Varkala, please.”  And Again.  “No Varkala.  Annacannatunam.”

“I think we’re on the wrong bus,” Linda observed.

“Well, it’s not like this is MY responsibility,” I said defensively.

“I kind of think it is,” she smiled sweetly.

So off we were to Annacannatunam, deeper into the Keralan countryside, and we arrive at the Central Bus Station and the buses are little more battered but the din a little less chaotic.

“When is the next bus to Varkala?” I ask at Enquiry.

“It is THAT bus sir,” he says, “and it leaves NOW!”

So back on the bus, which this time actually WAS going directly to Varkala, now only 12 kilometers  away but it was a local that stopped every 500 meters or so.  It now occurs to us that they were being as truthful and helpful as possible.  Every bus heading north out of Kovalam DOES go to Varkala, in the same way that every bus heading north out of New Orleans goes to New York City.  Eventually.

We finally got to Varkala Central Station a little after ten, and a short Tuk-Tuk ride took us directly to our hotel. (The tuk-tuk—pronounced took-took—is a Suzuki motorcycle encased in a brightly decorated open air shell that has room for a driver and officially two passengers and will almost certainly be the subject of a future post.)

Our next move comes Wednesday with a tuk-tuk, a train, a tuk-tuk, a ferry, and a tuk-tuk.  Wish us luck-luck.

Varkala, like Kovalam, is a beautiful laid-back ocean resort on the Arabian Sea and our hotel is magnificent.  We have said nothing so far about the exotic beauty and charm of these places, but that comes soon—along with pictures.







Roger Gets a Massage

Not THAT kind of massage.  Southern India is the birthplace of Ayurvedic medicine, an ancient philosophy of holistic treatment (it includes yoga) that has been practiced here since 3000 BC.  Its basic form of therapy is the Ayurvedic Massage, which consists of herbal-oil concoctions vigorously kneaded into the body.   It differs from western medicine in two respects: its tenets are ungrounded in scientific principle; and its practitioners are unregulated.  Other then that, it’s pretty much the same. If they were taken to advertising, like the health facilities in the US, their slogan might be “Keeping India Healthy for Five Thousand Years.” 

Kovalam, our starting point in India, prides itself as the Home of Aruvedic Therapy, and there are Treatment Centers at many of the small hotels and dozens more spread through the back-alley bazaars.  There are more Ayurvedic spas in Kovalam than wig shops in Detroit.  While not a devotee, exactly, Linda is up on this stuff and Ayurvedic treatment was high on her to-do list in southern India.  So when I arrived in Kovalam after thirty hours in coach with a stiff back, Linda’s solution was predictable:  “You need a massage.”

I admire and trust Linda’s judgment, and I’m also pretty indulgent.  This explains my recent acquiescence to ball room dance lessons and water aerobics.   So why not Ayurvedic therapy?  I avoided the “tourist places” and sought instead a gloomy back-alley bungalow that optimistically offered “Divine Ayurvedic Treatments.” 

We both signed up for the “full body massage”, but after the required consultation with the doctor a second therapeutic regimen was prescribed for me to treat my back pain.  The modesty of Indian culture dictates that massages be administered only by same-sex practitioners.  This is a good policy, as these are pretty intimate affairs, with the patient stark naked and virtually every square inch of exposed skin (and most orifices, too) vigorously poked and prodded and kneaded and greased.  Except that my doctor had to keep going into Linda’s examination room to get supplies.  You might have thought he would have planned ahead.  (“Lighten up, babe,” I told her later. “The man’s a doctor!”)

After the general one-hour session they began my therapy treatment.  My doctor carefully selected a mixture of herbs and exotic plants best to treat my back, the fruits of millennia of Ayurvedic research.  He formed the concoction into four poultices, which he then heated in an essential oil over a propane flame, the temperature approximating that of a White Castle deep fryer.  It is difficult to describe the smell and consistency.  It smelled and looked very much like a fish curry past its prime whisked briskly in a quart of 10-W 40 motor oil.

The doctor and his female accomplice then proceeded to dip the poultices from this pharmaceutical fondue and literally pound it into my pores, leaving no patch of skin unmolested.  For nearly an hour they pounded away, alternating poultices from the pot to ensure a scalding application.

And then it was over.  Looking as smug as the gyno that just delivered the octomom litter, the doctor announced, “All better now...wait thirty minutes and shower” and he left me standing buck naked, greased like a pig and stinking like the Rouge River in the examination-cum reception room.  I couldn’t get dressed (my clothes would have been ruined) and they wouldn’t give me a sheet because they either didn’t have one or they were afraid I would escape unnoticed, blending into the neighborhood.

When I finally was able to shower, the stink refused to leave!  It had been pounded into me so deeply that it is now probably part of my DNA.  Or maybe it’s not soluble in cold water; I wouldn’t know as we have yet to take a shower in India with a functional hot water tap.

So despite three subsequent cold showers, the stink has still not left me.  The bad new is that Linda will not come near me; the good news is that I now smell like the rest of India.  And my back is better.