Kerala has a democratically-elected Communist government which means it’s the first Communist society I have visited. I was surprised to find that the communists didn’t have horns and weren’t green and hairy or anything like that. In fact, we didn’t notice much difference at all except that Kerala is much cleaner and well organized than Karnataka.
I didn’t notice much difference, that is, until I was walking to my airplane on the last day. As I walked across the tarmac, I noticed that my plane was a rickettey old prop plane which looked like it was held together by masking tape and chewing gum. Wanting to take a picture of the contraption which would surely lead me to my death, I snapped a photo of it. Within seconds, three police officers with machine guns grabbed me and threw me up against a wall. Two of the officers held me at gunpoint while the third took my camera and sifted through my photos and deleted everything he felt was inappropriate for me to have photographed.
Kerala was amazing. The drive to Thekkadi was stunning. We drove through mountains in the jungle, through tea and spice plantations, and through rubber tree farms. We saw people commuting by elephant.
Our hotel in Thekkadi was on an island which we could only get to by boat in the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary which was originally the hunting grounds of the Maharajah of Travancore - and the hotel we stayed in was the palace where the Maharajah stayed while hunting. I can understand why he choose this place: the area was crawling with wildlife: wild boars, deer, buffalo, elephants, tigers, monkeys, eagles, vultures, birds, you name it. We saw no cobras, but we did spot a small water snake. It was quite far away, so it could have been a stick or a weed, but I’m pretty sure it was a snake. Probably poisonous.
We went on a long hike through the jungle where we were followed by monkeys who were trying to get some insider tips on how to be more human. It turns out I am not very good at keeping secrets. By the end of our hike, two of the monkeys had laptops.
Michelle and I rode an elephant called Akbar who I fell completely in love with. I am quite certain he fell in love with me, too. Michelle and I got to feed him after riding him, and he stared at me and leaned his giant head into my face while I pet his trunk. Michelle wouldn’t let me take him home.
We also made friends with an English couple who were on the hike with us. I am frustrated that I don’t have an English accent; I don’t sound anywhere near as clever as they do.
Then it was on to Alleppey where we spent a day and night on a houseboat. The crew cooked us three amazing meals including the largest tiger prawns I have ever seen and fish which were caught by the crew only minutes before being cooked. The crew laid anchor for us along a canal where Michelle and I were able to enjoy one of the most stunning sunsets in the history of the universe.
Then it was on to the Kumarakom lake resort where we spent the last days of our vacation getting spoiled rotten by the staff. The resort was a two hundred year old palace and the woodwork was stunning. Our cottage was on a meandering pool where we read books in the sun and relaxed until we became tense. I wore a dhoti which delighted the staff. Despite looking like a dress, a dhoti is a manly garb.
On the last day, we spent a few hours in Cochin, which used to be Dutch-controlled port. We visisted a Dutch-built cathedral, cemetery, and the old Dutch port. One of my ancestors lived in Cochin when it was controld by the Dutch; it was an amazing oportunity to see the old colonial buildings and imagine how strange it must have felt to arrive there without any idea what to expect and try to start a life.
As delicious as the food in India is, first thing Michelle and I did when we got back to Seattle was get hamburgers and microbrew at Quinn’s Pub on Capital Hill. It was awesome.
Ironically, our first weekend home, the New York Times travel guide featured a section on Kerala and happened to specifically mention the houseboat and lake resort we stayed at: Liquid Assets: A Perfumer Noses Around Kerala.
Michelle and I are off to the jungles of Kerala for a few days before we return to the United States. Kerala is widely considered to be one of the most beautiful places on earth, and I’m gunning for the the monsoon season not to strike a few weeks early so we have nice weather. I took the precausion to place several “good weather” orders with all the right people, so I feel good knowing I did my part.
We’ll fly into Cochin and travel 5 hours east to Thekkadi where we will spend two nights in a “cottage on an island in a wildlife sanctuary”. Having seen the animals running around the tiny sanctuary in Mysore, this actually scares the bujezuz out of me. Sleeping on an island with this guy as my bunkmate sounds more like “terrifying” than “relaxing”.
India’s national mascot is the King Cobra, the world’s largest venomous snake. It really bothers me that one of the deadliest animals on the planet is fast over land, can swim, can squiggle into small areas, can move about silently, and can strike accurately and lethally from something like 10 meters away. If it can kill a full-grown elephant with a single bite, the least nature could do is make it super gimpy or blind or something.
One of the managers here in Bangalore is from Kerala and I expressed my concerns about getting up in the middle of the night to stoke the fire only realize that what I thought was the fire poker was actually the business end of a cobra. He really got a kick out of me being afraid of snakes in the cottage. “Oh, they make sure there are no snakes in the buildings. But you should be careful when you go outside or leave the door open.” Thanks. That helps.
While staying in the sanctuary, we’ll be going on an elephant safari or some similar activity that seems to border on suicide. The good news here is that apparently, it’s possible to reattach limbs that get torn off by jungle beasts. The base assumption here being that you survived the attack. And even then, I bet it still ruins your trip.
After Thekkadi, we’ll be heading to Alleppey to get on a private houseboat for an overnight tour of the Kerala backwaters, which Conde Naste ranks as one of the ten things everyone should do before they die. What they forget to mention is that you should time this trip so that you do it before you spend the night in a cottage on Cobra Island in Thekkadi because then it becomes one of the ten things you should have done before you cozied up to a 12 foot venomous snake.
The houseboat will then drop us off at our final destination in Kumarakom where we will have a room on a big lake. Apparently, this is the place to be this time of year because most of the streams around the area will have dried up by now and all the wildlife will come to the water to drink.
If not, I’ll just use my croc-call to bring ‘em in.
Disclaimer for both our mothers who I’m sure I have scrared half to death with this post: the dangers of this trip have been greatly exaggerated. This is a very common itenerary and almost no tourists die on these trips. Usually.
I’ve been in India for two full weeks and it amazes me how all the little things that seemed to accentuate a feeling of foreignness have now blended into the backdrop of what is a beautiful, bustling, and comfortable country. The crazy traffic, the strange foods, the culture, the mannerisms of the people, the temples and shrines dotting the roadside, the poverty, the wealth; none of it strikes me as strange anymore and I feel oddly at home.
I feel like that’s great progress and I’m actually rather pleased that it happened so quickly. The downside, however, is that at the end of a long day at work, when I’m tired and cranky, I’m feeling comfortable enough to show my frustration and get annoyed by the little things – just like I do when I’m home. I suppose that means the honeymoon is over, but it doesn’t mean I love India any less. It just means I got crabby at the housekeeping guy for making me fill out three forms because he couldn’t take my laundry without having all the right paperwork that goes along with it. (In India, even laundry has a paper trail.)
Despite my comfort, some things don’t appear to be changing. For example, my success rate of ordering room service is steady at about 67%. I will place my order and the guy on the other end accepts it; only to have someone else call me a few minutes later to clarify the order.
I am routinely called a “Wine Weennie”. I prefer Old World wines; reds from the Rhone Valley in France, or a nice oaky Rioja. Anything with a Grenache grape is aces in my book. Indian wines don’t appear to fall into that narrow zone, so I don’t like to order wine at the hotel. For beer, the Kingfisher lager has a nice, fresh taste, but lagers aren’t my thing (I’ll have a nice hoppy IPA, thankyouverymuch.) With no other options (that I’m willing to try), I order gin and tonics with my dinners.
Room Service and I follow a rigorous process which is not deviated from:
Frank: “…and I would like a gin and tonic please.”
Room Service: “Okay, okay. I’ll bring it.”
(Frank hangs up.)
(Phone rings.)
Frank: “Yes?”
Room Service (different person): “Yes, sir. You ordered a gin and tonic?”
Frank: “Yes.”
Room Service: “Local or imported gin?”
Frank: “Local is fine, thank you.”
Room Service: “Okay, okay. I’ll bring it.”
(Frank hangs up.)
(Phone rings.)
Frank: “Yes?”
Room Service (different person): “You ordered a gin and tonic, sir?”
Frank: “Yes.”
Room Service: “Large or small?”
Frank: “Large is fine, thank you.”
Room Service: “Okay, okay. I’ll bring it.”
(Frank hangs up.)
(Phone rings.)
Frank: “Yes?”
Room Service (different person): “Good evening, sir. You ordered a gin and tonic?”
Frank: “Yes.”
Room Service: “One or two large?”
Frank: “One is fine, thank you.”
Room Service: “Okay, okay. I’ll bring it.”
(Frank hangs up.)
(Room service delivers two large gin and tonics. Every time.)
I spent the weekend in Chennai with Michelle, kicking around her ‘hood. Michelle has spent 3 of the last 6 months in Chennai, so she almost feels as though it is her second home. She knows all her favorite restaurants and shops, the best markets, where to get the best poori and dosa, places to avoid, and places to go. I have heard so much about Chennai from Michelle while she’s been here; it was utterly amazing to have the opportunity to spend time with her there and see it all first-hand.
We checked into the RainTree – one of the nicer hotels in Chennai - for the weekend. We enjoyed dinner and drinks on the rooftop bar, passed the midday heat on Saturday lounging by the pool and swimming, and spent the less hot hours shopping and going to markets. We did the same things on Sunday, except that we also visited a beautiful temple in Chennai, located at one of the original city centers (Chennai grew from two villages which became the two city centers.)
Chennai is a beautiful city with a completely different character from Bangalore; while it’s grittier, it’s also more real and has an intangible sense of life which, in an odd manner, reminds me of Toulouse.
The bottom line is: I love Chennai, miss it already, and can’t wait to go back.
I’ve been sitting on this photo album for about a week because I’ve been planning on writing a detailed account of the amazing weekend Michelle and I had in Pondicherry & Mahabalipuram. Alas, I never had time, and now I’m gearing up to go back to Chennai, anticipating new tales to tell. I suppose it’s better to write a quick summary than nothing at all, so here you go.
I flew from Bangalore to Chennai on Friday evening and we drove down to Pondicherry, about a three-hours drive. Along the drive, we have various surprising experiences. The first was seeing a motorcycle driving on the highway with a passenger who was holding a 4×8 sheet of plywood in his hands. He was holding it straight up and perpendicular to the direction of travel, like one of the sails on the Black Pearl. We were half-tempted to hang behind them and wait for the guy to inevitably sail off the back of the bike. But we didn’t.
Then, once we turned off the main road onto the smaller road that leads to Pondicherry, we struck up a conversation with our driver, Sethu, who had lived in Italy for two years. It turns out he was on the roadside of the Giro d’Italia when Marco Pantani won in 1998. The cashew trees were in bloom, so here we are in the middle of South India, chatting about Marco Pantani with Sethu while smelling the fresh scent of cashew blossoms. In India, you just never know what is going to happen next.
Well, we actually did know what would happen next: we spent the following day in Pondicherry, a French colonial town on the Bay of Bengal. Needless to say, it’s a beautiful town and - since we’re in South India - it was crowded and stiflingly hot.
The next day, we drove up the coast to the ancient temple town of Mahabalipuram. These amazing temples were carved straight out of a solid hunk of granite. ALL OF THEM. ONE HUNK OF GRANITE. Holy buckets. Unfortunately, most of the temples were never completed due to wars and people dying, etc, but it is a truly amazing site.
I had some spare time this morning, so I took a stroll through the neighborhood where my hotel is. The highlight of the adventure was the near three-way collision between an autorickshaw, a bicycle carrying about 3 dozen coconuts, and a scooter whose passenger was carrying a 20-inch television. I have a hard time imagining that someone would decide that it’s a great idea to hop on the back of your buddy’s scooter and take your television, let alone in this traffic.
I walked down the main road where my hotel is, and turned left onto a larger road and was amazed at how calm the traffic was at 8 in the morning; I only heard about a 7 honks per second, whereas normal traffic hovers around 35. I went about a block and turned down a side street and headed back towards the hotel.
India is amazing. To a Westerner, there is a lot of noise and commotion, and things seem disorganized and messy. But, if you look closely, there is beauty everywhere: people take care of everything they have; sweeping and cleaning, putting on their best clothes, and making sure their belongings are as tidy as possible. A valuable lesson for anyone.
I was surprised to find that the communists didn’t have horns and weren’t green and hairy or anything like that. In fact, we didn’t notice much difference at all except that Kerala is much cleaner and well organized than Karnataka.
of the most beautiful places on earth, and I’m gunning for the the monsoon season not to strike a few weeks early so we have nice weather. I took the precausion to place several “good weather” orders with all the right people, so I feel good knowing I did my part.
bustling, and comfortable country. The crazy traffic, the strange foods, the culture, the mannerisms of the people, the temples and shrines dotting the roadside, the poverty, the wealth; none of it strikes me as strange anymore and I feel oddly at home.
the amazing weekend Michelle and I had in 
