05/21/05: Into Kerala

Hello everyone!

Since my last email, we left the former French colony of Pondicherry and headed back to "real India" (in some ways good, in many ways bad). Madurai is another temple town (there's lots of them here in Tamil Nadu) but what I'll really remember about Madurai is our first encounter with monsoon-type rain. We had just entered a palace ruin to a light rain when the skies just opened up and let loose. It has to be in my Top 5 hardest rains ever list (and I do have one). For a little while, the novelty of the situation was fun...after an hour, it was boring...after an hour and a half we were getting pretty desperate. Finally, the rain let up (a bit) and we dashed around the corner to find a taxi or autorickshaw. To no avail. Instead we found ourselves wading in almost knee deep water as we walked down the street. I tried not to think about the typical contents of streets in India (trash and cowshit) or the state of the sewer system (non-existant) or about all the cuts, scrapes, and mosquito bites I have on my legs getting exposed to the nasty water. I simply cannot imagine how this region copes when it rains everyday like this for 4 straight months...my guess is southern India turns into one big pond.

From Madurai, we headed to Kanyakumari - at the very southern tip of India, where three "oceans" meet - the Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean, and Arabian Sea. It's a very cool place and there were a lot of Indian families there playing and enjoying the twilight. Families here in the south seem a lot friendlier - asking us to take pictures (of them for them, of us for them, or of us and them for them or us...got it?) and generally smiling more and saying hi. I think the difference is education (90% literacy in Kerala) and tourism (ie. rip-offs and touts) being a much smaller portion of the economy. Many places we can actually walk around without the incessant begging or offers of "come see my store? what do you want? it's free to look..." One other interesting note in Madurai - men have to take their shirts off to go into the temple. I would have thought that would deter fat men from entering, but from my survey of the people there, no such luck.

From Kanyakumari, Deanna and I headed north into Kerala and then parted ways temporarily. She is taking a course, and I decided "why should I try to improve myself when I can just sit around all day instead?" So that's what I did. I spent a week in the area around Thiruvananthapuram (the easier British name is "Trivandrum")...mostly at two beaches. The first was called Kovalam, and is quite nice. This being low season (it's way too hot except for fools like us), there are some tremendous deals to be had on accomodation. I've managed to find nice (for here) beachfront or sea view places between 125 and 250 Rupees ($3-6)...incredible. Of course, the downside is that there's no one here to talk to. I went to dinner the other night and it was just me, the waiter, a chef (this I'm assuming but it's possible the waiter cooked the food as well given how it tasted), and not one other person in this place that could accomodate 80 people. Luckily, they were showing a movie so I didn't die of boredom. Unluckily, it was xXx2: The Next Level and Ice Cube isn't half the actor that he is a rapper (with the exception of Friday of course). I found myself hanging out with the guy that worked at the hotel - since it was low season he could just leave the desk and hang out at the bar next door. This guy's name was Lalu (I thought that was a camel name!), he was 23, and much, much wiser than I at 31. After debating the merits of arranged marriages, I am considering his offer that his mother find me a wife.

The other really interesting thing in Kovalam was watching their traditional fishing method (yeah I told you there wasn't much to do). A boat goes and casts a net about 250 meters from shore and then a group of men stand in a line and pull the net in. There's between 15 and 20 men pulling on the rope and to keep time, they actually sing as they work. It's really cool and brought to mind cartoons where everyone sings as they work in the coal mines.

From Kovalam, I took the bus to Trivandrum and then went to the other bus station to get to Varkala - the next beach. As I waited, an old woman communicated that she was going to Varkala as well...which was a HUGE relief to me considering all the signs on the buses (and there area constant stream of buses pulling in and leaving) were in Tamil rather than English. Unfortunately I didn't realize I had found one of the few illiterate Indians down here. Eventually we got on a bus - after I memorized how "Varkala" looks in the Tamil script and ran to ask the bus driver - but I swear we missed a bus that looked exactly the same an hour before:

me: "is that Varkala?"
her (looking directly at sign that says Varkala in Tamil): "mm...not Varkala"

Anyway, we made it eventually. I am greatly looking forward to Deanna's return and then we're taking a backwaters cruise and then heading north to Goa and then way north to Himachel Pradesh (near the Himalayas).

Hope everyone is well -