Friday February 25

Friday February 25

We departed Mumbai for Kochi today. Mother India was not kind to Heather today. Upon arrival at the airport Heather's reservation made and paid for with Yatra was not in Kingfisher Airlines system. A call to Yatra Customer Support with all reservation and booking info was ignored and they said they couldn't help her. She had to buy another ticket. At the security checkpoint she had to unpack the entire contents of her backpack, twice I think she said. At one point the female security guard asked Heather, "and what are these madam?" To which Heather answered "underware." Once through security we boarded the plane for an uneventful two hour flight to Kochi.

Our visit here is to check out hotels for when the "real" cultural immersion starts for the rest of the group. We arrived at our home stay to find out that the two rooms with air conditioning was actually one room with air conditioning, only the air conditioner was missing from the room. A couple calls later ended us up in Hotel Delight which had two rooms with functioning air conditioning. You definately need an air conditioner here. At 10pm it's 80 degrees with 80% humidity.

We had a quick bite for lunch which was very good in spite of the live rat's tail that could be seen twitching between two boards near the ceiling.

The architecture here is distinctively European and the Christian influence everywhere. The Santa Cruz Bascilia practically next to our hotel. The streets are lined with homes and shops which is unlike any part of India I've seen to date. There's lush green vegetation everywhere and many of the trees are ancient and have grown to tremendous size. Of course with all the lush green vegetation comes mosquitos. I've seen a few in my room which I've quickly sent to mosquito heaven but so far no bites. I've been taking my malaria medication since I've been here.

I did take my first ride on a local bus this afternoon. Heather was needing to buy a phone charger so we stopped and asked where we might find one and the lady said we could find it but it was a long walk and that we should take the bus. Well the bus had just pulled into the bus stop so in a second we were on the bus heading for her phone charger. It was a bone jarring ride. The bus stopped at a Catholic girls school and a number of them boarded sporting their school uniforms all with their hair parted down the middle and blue bows on either side of the part keeping their hair in place. Maybe twenty minutes down the road we were told this was our stop so off we went in search of her phone charger which was found at the second shop. We went into a nearby shop looking for ayurvedic mosquito repellent for Heather but she ended up buying a collection of green bracelets and a few packs of bindi's. Not sure I spelled bindi correctly but they are small ornamental jewelry that you can stick between your eyebrows or more correctly where your third eye is located. I bought some too, but not for me.