Kochin: Nutmeg & Honey

Finally arrived in Kochin... well, more like Erankulam across the water. Fort Kochin itself is quite small and more of a bedroom community. There's enough here to keep you busy for a day. I took the ferry over and roamed around the island for a day looking at the Chinese fishing nets, the Portuguese architecture and the synagogue in Jew Town. I ended my day by catching a kathakali performance, a classical Indian dance. There were about five other people in the audience, amongst them a nice Canadian guy. He has been traveling the country for a few months and was also staying at the hotel I am at, Basoto Lodge. There was a huge dead cockroach right in front of the stage that distracted me until the performer mimed the opening of a lotus flower. I swear I could see the sunshine behind him and hear the birds chirping when he did that. A nice man showed me the way to the theatre and when I came out of the theatre he showed me the way to a rooftop bar. Later, I showed myself the way to my hotel.


The following day I met up with Tom, the French guy I met in Hampi at the bus stop and we took a full day backwater tour on a canoe and houseboat. Tom is a rice king much like Scott B who misses his Asian girlfriend a lot. He has been talking about her nonestop and it's kind of cute. We got a really good lunch as part of the tour. There were these two German girls that absolutely hated India. They had arrived a week ago, freaked out, changed their ticket to leave the week after they arrived and were passing time in the meantime. I was kind of surprised but then we had lunch and they couldn't eat the curry because it tasted funny and the other girl didn't want anything coconut on her plate. Those girls need to get their asses to a Club Med pronto. Suffice it to say that my conversation with them was limited. Luckily, Tthere was a doctor from Glasgow on the trip and our tour guide opened up to her quite candidly. He told her all about his diabetes... and his erectile dysfunction. Apparently viagra didn't help him but a mixture of honey and nutmeg worked better. His wife was happy for a total of three minutes. I don't quite know if he applied it onto himself or if he consumed it.... Anyone out there have a clue? He also kept saying that cashew nuts were a natural aphrodisiac. I guess those you would insert... anyone? Am I right or what?

Left the hotel after the backwater tour at 8pm and headed onto a bus. Man, driving at night is no fun. I couldn't figure out if the guy behind me was taking liberties with his toes up on my seat. In the end I figured if running his toes along my sweaty back pocket was giving him the thrill of his life then who am I to deny such a small favour? No seriously though, it was kinda disturbing. I was the only woman on the bus. More interestingly though, I figured out that I can hear through my mouth. Yes, yes, it's true! I put in earplugs because the engine of the bus was soooo loud and then I had to yawn. It freaked me right out when I started to hear everything clearly once my mouth was open in mid yawn. Try it and see if it works for you. I didn't sleep a wink because I kept getting freaked out when I yawned. Plus, the bus driver kept swerving into oncoming traffic and then all the way across onto the side of the road. Most of the vehicles that we swerved around had the words "highly flammable" and "EXPLOSIVES" on them. I'm a backseat driver and I'm sure that my being awake helped him avoid those trucks with their deadly cargo... somehow.

Once that ride ended at 5am in Salem I had to get off the bus and wait for my connection to Pondicherry. The minute I got off this group of men just started crowding around me. I sat down and they just stood around me and stared their little eyes out. Eventually a soldier with a rather large rifle came up to me and escorted me to my bus. That was nice. I spent the next 7 hours watching Tamil music videos while the surly bus driver stuck his head out of the window and yelled at all the people he almost ran over in his attempt to get the vehicle to its next stop.

Thanks to my 7 hour ride I think I have a pretty good grip on the landscape of Tamil Nadu. There are some mountains, rice paddies, two varieties of palm trees and a load of small villages. We passed mosques, hindu temples, ox with decorated horns and a hundred kids dressed in white sitting in their school's courtyard in the shade of a tree learning their ABCs... or whatever the Tamil equivalent would be. Also learned on my ride that men and women don't sit together on the bus. I had my hood on because it was so cold and a guy sat next to me. He looked over and grimaced, for real, he grimaced like I was a leper or something when he realised I was a woman, then promptly got up and sat somewhere else.

I sleep in a bed tonight. I'm looking forward to it.

The promenade in Pondicherry