A Week's Worth of Catching Up

March 22-23, Tuesday - Wednesday

The big news of today was Mr. Warren Buffett (the third richest men in the world) arrived at the Bangalore airport shortly after I did and I was able to record his reception as he arrived in the main concourse. There were two dancers in traditional Karnataka dress who performed for him. I have a video which I probably not so spectacular. The noteworthy part is that Mr. Buffet and his entourage positioned themselves directly in front of me for a photo shoot. I could have put my hand on his shoulder so it probably looks like I'm part of the entourage. So if anyone wants to Google "Warren Buffet Bangalore Airport" and see if I'm standing behind him in one of those photos.

I had forgotten what a long ride it was from the Cochin airport to Fort Cochin. It was an hour and a half of night driving in India. This activity is not for the faint of heart. First off everyone drives just as crazy at night as they do during the day. It is very difficult to see as most streets are either dimly lit or no lit at all. The trucks and cars have various degrees of working lights. Some not at all, some have front lights but no rear lights. Some trucks have running lights and some don't, same is true for front and rear lights. Then there's the motorcycles which most working lights but bicyclist have no lights anywhere. Many people drive with the high beam lights on all the time so these oncoming vehicles on add to the degree of difficulty of driving at night. Horn blowing is the national pastime and at night flashing your high beams on and off adds to the dexterity of the driver. My driver must have flashed his high beans on and off the entire one and a half hours ride. Just the clicking was enough to pluck one's nerves. All of this and add in that most roads are in need of serious repair make for one harrowing night driving experience.

After a night's rest at the Delight home stay I departed Cochin for a couple days stay at the Green Palm home stay in the backwaters. Fortunately there were six people from France traveling from the Green Palm to Cochin so I was able to catch a ride back in and shiny new air conditioned version of India's SUV. He dropped me off directly across from the home stay where I caught the public canoe across the canal. My plans are to do as little as possible.

My afternoon was spent watching the residents go about their lives in the back waters of Kerala. Afternoon bathing and washing dishes along side the canal are activities most observed. The women bath fully clothed, the men wrap a thin oversized towel around them and the little kids are naked.

I did take a short walk Wednesday afternoon and encountered a young boy squatting over a rock crushing a bag of crackers with a rock. I asked him what he was doing. He looked up and said "Playing." The closest item that resembles a toy are bicycles but they are used for transportation. The world cricket matches are going on right now and it is huge over here. I've seen kids playing cricket, some have an actual cricket bat and ball, but some use a ball that's just a bunch of string held together somehow and the cricket bat is made from a palm prawn. All the kids I've met here in the back waters have been very friendly, very well mannered, love to talk to Westerners, and really love to have their photo taken. All speak Hindi, Malayalum, and English. Some speak better English than others.

March 24, Thursday

Ate breakfast at 8 and talked to Thomas until 9. Sat under the shade of the boat dock until noon watching the water taxi cross from bank to bank and watched boats of various shapes and sizes move up and down the canal. Ate lunch at 1, took a nap around 3, tea time at 4, took another nap around 5, ate dinner at 8, went to bed at 10. Pretty much what I was looking to do.

March 25, Friday

Met back up with Heather, Genny, Yurie, and Shauna at the boat dock for a second house boat adventure around 2 pm. It was pretty much the same as the other house boat adventure so I won't repeat.

March 26, Saturday

We were dropped off at the dock of the Green Palm home stay around 10 am. I moved back into my same room of Wednesday and Thursday night. Not much to report as we stayed close to the air conditioning. I did take quite a few pictures of the wonderful family and their workers that have taken such good care and have fed up such wonderful food the past few days.

I do have one story to tell. I had thought how nice it would be to be able to give those boys had a real cricket bat and ball to play with. One of the young boys whom I met that was playing cricket with the palm stem and tattered ball, was named Sandeep. He was particularly polite and endearing. During the house boat cruise Friday night we stopped at a local village which happened to have a toy store. I bought a nice wooden cricket bat and four balls for Sandeep. The next day, I thought that I would just walk down to where he was playing and would give him the bat and balls. As it turned out he lived across the canal so it looked like I would be leaving the bat and ball with Manu at the guest house and he would see to it that Sandeep got the gift. Well, just after 7 pm I look up and saw Sandeep is crossing the canal in the taxi. As he approached, I told him to meet me at the dock and that I had something for him. He beamed when he saw the wooden cricket bat and the balls. To put it mildly, he was overjoyed. He said that this was my bat and that he would take care of it forever. He even had me autograph it for him. It was a nice feeling to do something like that for such a fine young man. I have pictures of him crossing the canal in the taxi, bat in hand. It was a nice story to tell.

Tomorrow we leave for Cochin. I've already been there three times but for the new group it will be their first visit. There's plenty to see and do there. Plus they have a internet cafe and the wifi is 30 rupees for an hour (that's less than a dollar) so I can catch you up on my travels.

Hap-py Ho-li!

Happy Holi Gang! It's the springtime festival in India, where we throw powdered paint on one another...this is a tradition that's normally celebrated in the north of India for the first day of spring, but we did our own celebration at the ashram today, featuring Bollywood music and oodles of color being thrown on everyone's faces, arms, and in each other's hair, until your friends are no longer recognizeable to you = g o o d t i m e s ! We then proceeded to dance our booties off on a dance floor made of cow dung (what else?), and then hopped in the lake where a crocodile was recently sighted (always a li'l element of danger to keep things real) to rinse off.

Whew!

Tomorrow I leave the ashram at 2am to fetch Yurie and Shauna at the airport, and Day One of the 3AC Tour (read: Get Down 'n' Dirty) begins.

Yip Yip!

March 19-20, Saturday-Sunday

March 19-20, Saturday-Sunday

Jonathan showed up while I was eating breakfast this morning. Last time I saw him was October last year so it was good to see him again. He needed to pick up a pair of thai pants at a local tailor so I hitched a ride on the back of his 250cc Honda motorcycle. The driver is required to wear a helmet but not the passenger(s). So off I went, breaking every motorcycle safety principle I've practiced, never ride without a helmet and and certainly not wearing flip flops. It was all I had. I held my video camera in my right hand and held on the the bar behind the rear seat and recorded the ride to the tailor. With all the traffic you never really get going that fast anyway.

Today starts the Holi Festival. It is celebrated the day after the first full moon in March. Holi got it's name from the festival of colors by Lord Krishna, who liked to play pranks on the village girls by drenching them in water and colors. The festival marks the end of winter and the abundance of the upcoming spring harvest. This is one of those festival days that they smear or splatter various color powder all over themselves and every one else who happens along. Before I left the hotel this morning I was warned that the locals particularly love getting the Westerners so I knew before the day was done I'd be targeted. Another rite of passage in India.

After the tailor we headed to a hole in the wall restaurant for lunch. We ordered thali which is the same type of food Heather and I ate at the aurvedic restaurant a few weeks ago on our first trip to Kochin. Before the restaurnat we stopped at a small store for water. I approached a group of young men for a picture. They had been celebrating Holi as they were covered in all colors of powder. After a picture or two they enjoyed very much smearing blue powder all over my face and had particular joy in smearing it in my goatee and mustache. I have a picture. I had to take a shower to get all of the blue out.

I was joined later in the evening by Jonathan, Natasha, and Amber. Natasha and Amber are students at Jonathan's shala. They are both from San Diego and I met them once before when Leela and I went to the Mystic Kava Coffee bar in North Park for a yoga practice taught by Jonathan. We all went to the Maharaja's Palace to see it lit up by some 60,000 white light bulbs. We got there just in time to watch them go out. I did get a couple of pictures before the blackout. They only light it up for 30 minutes as I'm sure the electric bill is pricey.

Got my properly washed clothes back this morning. The simplicity of clean clothes.

The weather here in Mysore is a lot like SD. Very pleasant temperatures and low humidity. What a contrast as I went from sweating while doing absolutely nothing, to my skin feeling all dried out. I'll take it though, as I return to the heat and humidity of Kerala on Tuesday evening.

Jonathan picked me up this Sunday morning and we're at a coffee shop that has free wifi, so with the free wifi I'll send this out.

Friday, March 18

Friday, March 18

I have left my traveling partner, Heather, for a solo venture to Mysore (where I am now writing this). I have watched and learned much from this veteran India traveler and feel I am now prepared to go it alone. My friend Jonathan Patriarca from San Diego is in Mysore teaching at his Bheemashakti yoga center until the first of April. My plans are to stay in Mysore and visit with Jonathan until the 22nd of March. Heather is going back to the ashram for the next three days and then head into Trivandrum to meet the next three members of the second half of our India experience. She'll then return to the ashram with the three in tow for another three days. Heather is happiest at the ashram. Jen headed back home to San Diego today with a carry on full of mine and Heather's India souvenirs. Thanks Jen for lightening my load these final couple of weeks.

The ride from the hotel to the airport was a harrowing ride with this very young taxi driver. Fortunately the street were pretty deserted at 06:30 am but there were times he must have hit 50 mph on streets sparsely lined with people, bicycles, motorcycles, cars, trucks, dogs, and a few goats (of course he was dialing and talking on his cell phone). I have learned it does no good to tell them to slow down that you're not in a hurry. It's in their DNA to haul ass and pass everyone ahead of them. I just sat there with no seat belt and knew he would deliver me safely to the airport.

At the airport this morning the Trivandrum I met this young lady from Berlin. She had been in India for four months and was returning home. She told me she had only planned to stay at the Sivananda Ashram for a few days but ended up staying there long enough to complete their Yoga Teacher Training program. She had never practiced yoga before she came to the ashram. How these past four months have changed this young lady forever. She hopes to start teaching yoga and hopefully one day open her own studio.

The Royal Orchid Metropole is an 120 year old colonial structure that was built by the Maharaja of Mysore to entertain foreign guests. I feel like Ernest Hemingway looking out over the courtyard between the two wings of the building. There are rattan chairs and wooden tables sitting on the brick patio, a huge mango tree that extends over the second story and the Indian staff dressed in their black pants, white collarless shirts, and purple aprons with arms folded behind them waiting for me to glance their way to provide me with immediate service. I doubt Mr. Hemingway was using an iPad and a wireless keyboard but I'm sure he would have had they been available. I've been sitting here catching up on my writing for the past couple of hours and enjoying what is some delightfully enjoyable weather. It must be ten degrees cooler here and the humidity is much lower as I've gotten farther inland away from the sea. It will be a nice recharge for my system until I return for the final two weeks in the oven of India.

I've gotten pretty good at washing my clothes in the sink of every hotel from Trivandrum to Mumbai. But the hand washing with bar soap hasn't really gotten the clothes clean or the odors removed. At present, have three shirts and two pair of pants. Two of my shirts and the other pair of pants are getting a proper washing from the hotels laundry services, which means I'll be wearing my remaining pants and shirt all of today and tomorrow. Socks and underwear can be easily washed in the sink. Actually, it's been too hot to wear either of these items so they've stayed pretty clean in my backpack. TMI.

I just ordered my first beer in three weeks. They've had Kingfisher beer at most of the places we've been but I hear they put glycerin in it and Heather says they put formaldehyde in it so I've avoided it. The only other beer they have is Budweiser so what the hell. Budweiser delivered and it tastes pretty good.

March 14-17, Monday - Thursday

March 14-17, Monday - Thursday

After a 07:30 am meditation and yoga practice we enjoyed a late breakfast with two young men and a young lady from Germany. They were headed to Varkala from where we just came. Our plan was to enjoy the day around Cochin. Our tour guide Heather directed us to one of the local bicycle rentals where we rented three bicycles that looked similar to the Wicked Witch of the West bicycle complete with baskets (well Heather's and Jen had one anyway). So off we set out to Jew Town (that's the name) during the hottest part of the day. Besides the heat it really was the best way to cover a lot of ground and really see the streets and goings on. We lasted a couple hours and headed back to the comfort of our air conditioned rooms.

Late afternoon we returned our bicycles and headed to the local fish market and the area where the famous Chinese fishing nets are located. I'll do my best to describe the operation of the fishing nets. The center support is a huge A frame that serves as a pivot point (think swing set). The support the goes between the two A frames supports the fishing net on one end and a group of hanging boulders that are roped together on the other. There are four or five separate ropes each with six or seven boulders attached. The poles that connect to the fishing net and the boulders are lashed together at either end to form an upside-down V shape. When the fishing net is in the water the boulders are suspended above the fishing platform. When they want to raise the fishing net out of the water, four or five guys just pull down on the ropes and with the weight of the boulders the fishing net is lifted from the water. So any fish they catch are the ones that just happen to be swimming by the moment the fishing net is raised up. The whole apparatus is huge. If my description is clear as mud then please Google it.

We departed Cochin for Allepey on Tuesday morning a bit after 09:00 am to catch our departing house boat at 11:30 am. We requested a cab with A/C but about half way through the trip we all concluded that it was cooler with the windows rolled down.

We were dropped off at the "finishing point." This is where the Kerala snake boat races finish. In this case the boats are manned by up to 120 men. I just got this out of one of color brochures from a man working at the pavilion. It is also were our house boat picked us up to start our "backwaters" experience. The backwaters are 650 square miles of man-made islands and canals. They've built up the canals over many years by digging mud from the canal floor and piling it up on the banks. They've also built concrete and stone walls along side the banks to hold back the water. There are pathways along side the edge of the canals and homes and small shops have been built sometimes within a few feet of the waters edge while some larger homes are set back 20 to 30 feet. We paddled around one of these islands and it took us about two hours. This might give you an idea as to how big these islands are. The water pretty much stays at the same level year round except once a year they let in the salt water from the ocean to flush out the backwaters. It also flushes out all the trash as well. I haven't done so but I hear Google Earth shows these canals really well.

About 100 feet back from the water's edge begin the rice fields which are below the water level of the canal. They have gates that they raise when they need to water the fields. They get two rice yields each year so each takes 4 months and they let the field lay fallow the other 4 months. The backwaters are the "rice bowl" of India. Coconuts are also a very important commodity for the locals. In addition to the milk and the edible part coconut, then also use the outer shell for jewelry and bowls, they've combined rubber from the local rubber trees and coconut fibers to make some very nice doormats. The fibers are also used as stuffing for mattresses (no wonder the beds here are so hard). They also use the palm prawns for roofing material (but many homes now use red brick tile). The hard branch part of the palm prawn is used for fire material. Coconut palms start producing in 45 days and with coconut palms everywhere you can harvest somewhere most every day. Banana trees start producing in a little over a year and once the single bunch is harvested the tree is cut down. One single banana tree produced a number of offshoots so the banana population thrives here also.

Anyway, back to the house boat. These house boats have become big business for the backwaters. Our boat had two full bedroom complete with toilet/shower and air conditioning. There was a sitting area on the front deck with a couple nice padded chairs to relax in and a small dining table with four chairs and an area with a small flat screen tv. There was a covered upper deck but it was too hot to sit up there. In the back was a small galley where our food was prepared. We were taken care of by three men, Shrijoo, Fasil, and Joseph. We spent the next 20 hours or so slowly cruising the backwater canals. We tied up near a shady row of palms trees for lunch and then later in the afternoon we stopped at a very small local market where I bought two huge prawns and six smaller prawns which were cooked for our dinner. Around 5:30 pm we stopped for the evening and departed the boat for a walk along the canal. Not far down the path a young lady of 17 invited the three of us into her backyard to enjoy the sunset. We were soon joined by her entire family. I wish I could include pictures along with these writings because my words cannot describe the beauty of the people and of their back water surroundings. Back to the boat for dinner and then to bed. As it has been throughout these past almost four weeks it was hot that evening but a quick start of the boat's generator and the air conditioning came to life and provided a most restful nights sleep. From my cabin window I looked East over the palm trees reflecting in the still canal waters during the night. The full moon was about a week away so there was enough moonlight to illuminate the surroundings. I got up before sunrise to watch the backwaters come to life. There were many varieties of birds and waterfowl flying over the length of canal where we were docked. I must have seen a hundred birds fly by in the 20 minutes I stood on the top deck. Then the water taxi's filled with commuters appeared and then boats towing two large canoes each filled with people going to work. Larger working boats and a couple of small canoe's with two men passed by. I have video of this all with the sun coming up in the background which I hope will capture them moment. A quick breakfast of a masala omelet and the second half of a fresh pineapple left over from the previous evening and we were off to slowly cruise the canals until we were dropped off at our home stay around 9:30 am. It must have been laundry day as many women and a few men were washing (beating) their clothes against the rocks along side the shoreline. I believe the women who do this for a living are called dobi wallas. Heather says if you have an article of clothing you want broken in just give it to at dobi walla.

We spent the next 24 hours at the Green Palm home stay in the village of Chennamkary. Our gracious host Thomas greeted us on the dock as we departed our house boat. My plans are to return there next week for a two days and just enjoy doing absolutely nothing on Wednesday and Thursday, rejoin Heather on Friday for yet another house boat cruise and then enjoy one final night at the Green Palm. The Green Palm is built on one of those man made islands I described about with the canal in the front and the rice fields in the back. At 5:30 pm Thomas took us for a walk and talk around his neighborhood for a very educational glimpse of life in the backwaters. Much of what he told us I have already mentioned above.

We departed the next morning for Trivandrum. A rickshaw was called to pick us up at 10:00 am. He arrived promptly and awaited across the canal to take us to the train station. But first had to cross the canal on a small canoe/taxi which picked us up at Thomas' dock and delivered us dry and safely to the opposite shore. There were seven of us on this water taxi which in my estimation was plenty. Thomas said you could get 18 Indians in that same boat.

The three hour train ride to Trivandrum took almost four and on this train we had to pleasure to share our compartment with a number of cockroaches that crawled around and on us during the ride. Ah, Incredible India.

first class, check. 3AC, on deck...

just dropped jen in a rickshaw this morning and away she goes back to the land of clement weather and big bananas...mike departed for mysore for a brief sojourn to visit a buddy and to relax first class style, before he meets back with the 3AC tour in a few days. as for me...i'm kicking around with 3 days at the ashram before the 3AC folks start to show up.

i'm looking forward to getting on a local bus to be among my people, and settling into the comfort that a routine offers at the ashram, even if the routine does include a 5am wake up bell ;)

i'm also making my travel plans for the ten days i have after the 3 ac tour, which was going to include tromping about in india proper, but it looks like i'm heading back up to the mountains of dharamsala once more, as it's the only place that will be less than 100 degrees in the entire country, which sounds like a great reason to me!

i was looking into transport options - a train, an authentic indian experience of 20 hours, only $12 ticket. waiting list for the train, however, is 37 people. and the airplane option of only 2 hours, $60, no waiting list. looks like i'm gonna have to pull the gringo card for this one ;)

conversation with the boy sitting next to me on the train

on this 5 (or so:) hour train ride, i found myself talking to an indian boy sitting next to me, who was forlornly musing about his mother's cooking, which he wouldn't have for another 65 hours (his train ride significantly longer), and he said he was lonely...as he was travelling with 4 of his classmates i asked him:

you're lonely even though you were travelling with friends?

him: yes, friends are not like family. nothing is like family. i miss them very much.



me: how long have you been away from home?

him: 7 days

me: how old are you aashish?

him: 31.



and there you have it: a 31-year old male who is homesick after one week away from his mother's cooking and misses his family like crazy. of course i do miss my family and my mama's cooking...but living 2500 away from my parents and travelling out of the continent for over two months must just seem like utter nonsense to these people.

wouldn't be india w/o the contrast... :)