God's Own Country

Okay, I know I've been back from India for almost six months now, but I'm still going to finish blogging it...because this is pretty much the only record I have of my existence and adventures.  So read it if you want to be entertained and informed...or ignore it if you want! 

From Delhi Marissa and I took an early morning flight to Kochi, a city in the state of Kerala in Southwestern India...right on the Indian Ocean.  

I had really good intentions of working out every day while I was in India and I did work out a couple of times.  So I had hand weights with me and when we were traveling down to Kerala and the luggage allowance was a lot less than it was for my international flight, I decided to carry-on my hand weights to cut down on the weight of my checked bag.  Apparently you can't have hand weights in your carry-on though.  I guess you could do some pretty serious damage to someone's skull with a weight, but you could do even more damage by nailing someone over the head with a loaded carry-on, so I don't really get it.  I guess I've never traveled with hand weights before so I never thought about them being a weapon of mass destruction.  

So, when I went through security they stopped me, rummaged through my bag and pulled out the weights.  I could tell that they didn't want to have to take the weights away from me, a girl who obviously needed to use them and who was most likely not a terrorist, so the girl asked another person working security if the weights were okay to send through with me...and that person went and got a supervisor...and that person went and got another person and by the end there were five or six security people gathered around the weights.  It was so funny because each person that would come to inspect the weights would pick them up, do a couple of bicep curls and then set them down again.  In the end they told me that I could go back and check them, but by that point our flight was boarding and I just told them to keep them.  Hopefully some Indian is getting buff with them right now.  They were these old pink 1990's weights that my mom and I used to use when we'd do step aerobics together when I was back in high school...so, I figured it wouldn't be that great of a loss.  I know that was a long tangent but it was really funny at the time so I wanted to remember it.  

On one portion of the flight...from Delhi to Mumbai... I sat by this guy...

kinda scary.  I wonder if he realized he could just put the window shade down and didn't have to go all blind bandit to keep the sun out of his eyes.  I guess he didn't.  

Then the next leg of the flight...from Mumbai to Kochi I sat my a little chubby Indian girl wearing a Hannah Montana hat (kinda made me sad...I don't like the Disneyization of the world) who kept touching my arm and then looking away when I'd look her way.  Seriously...I think she touched my arm at least 10 times in the short flight.  'Yes, yes little girl, I am white,' I thought.  It was kinda funny...and kinda annoying...I was trying to sleep.  

Anyway, after two flights, and a long bus ride from Kochi to Fort Kochi sitting by a guy carrying a giant tub of Tang ("What's up with that giant tub o' Tang?"), and an auto rickshaw ride from a guy who kept trying to convince us to stay at his friend's hotel instead of the guest house we had a reservation at, we finally made it to our destination...the Green Woods-Bethlehem.  

It was a simple little guest house...out in a cute little residential neighborhood.  

It was the kind of place that was clean and safe but had skinny little mattresses that reminded me of my mission in Argentina.  

It was the kind of place with interesting Jesus art...

 and owners who greet you at the end of your day and sometimes even have dinner waiting for you (although Sheeba's curry made me yell "FIRE, FIRE, FIRE" to Marissa as I ran for water)...

Their names are Ashley and Sheeba, and by the end of our week there we felt like we had parents in India.  They were great people.  

Ashely and Sheeba are big time Christians (hence the interesting Jesus artwork everywhere), which is kind of unusual for India since only a little over 2% of Indians are Christian, but which is much more common in the state of Kerala, in which 19% of people are Christians.  

Interestingly, according to tradition, Kerala is so super Christian because Thomas, one of the original apostles of Christ, came to Kerala to preach and organize the church there back in 52 A.D.  So, that might be part of the reason why there's such a big Christian community in Kerala, but I'm guessing it has more to do with the Europeans who settled Kerala...first the Portuguese and then the Dutch.  

Anyway, blah, blah, history, blah.  So anyway, Kerala is a pretty unique and beautiful place...in fact so beautiful they call it "God's own country." 

And Kerala is a nice, beautiful, peaceful place, but I don't think I'd go as far as to call it "God's own country," because I don't think God's country would be so freaking humid.  It was hot...even super roasting hot at times...in the other parts of India we visited, but it was a dry heat and much more tolerable.  But Kerala was extremely humid and sometimes hot and humid...and my self esteem came crashing down.  Because I'd do my hair and it would look like this...

 and less than 10 minutes later, it would look like this...

Take that, plus the shiny humid face, and it was a recipe for self-esteem disaster.  

Oh wait, and I forgot about the rain...all the rain...and that made the self-esteem situation even worse.  We thought we could beat the monsoon season's arrival in Kerala...and normally we would have, but this year, the monsoon season arrived in Kerala a week early.  Dang.  

But really it wasn't that bad.  It was kind of fun to experience, since we didn't have much rain during the other parts of our trip and planning around and talking about the Monsoon season is such a big part of Indian life, it was fun to experience it.  Besides, we would have missed out on having a guy who passed us while slowly riding a bike in the rain, soggy cigarette hanging from his mouth, say to us with a thick Indian accent, "rain, rain, go away!"  

During our time in Kerala it rained and rained and rained.  We'd usually get a few hours of sunshine during the day, but it always rained at night.  

But luckily there were a plethora of auto-rickshaws available to drive us around in the rain.  

I like auto-rickshaws...I wish we had them in America, but only if they were as cheap as Indian auto-rickshaws.  Sometimes we'd find ourselves arguing with our rickshaw drivers over the price of the ride...and then we'd realize that when we converted the Rupees to Dollars we were arguing over the difference between a 75¢ and a $1 ride that we were splitting between us and three other friends we made at the guest house.  

Anyway, we found some interesting artwork in Kerala.  The following picture is one we saw in a restaurant in Fort Kochi.  

I would like to title it, "Skinny man with pointy nose and prissy lips marries woman with ginormous jugs while creepy preacher and wedding guests check her out."  I think that about covers it all.  

Kerala has quite a different cuisine from the other parts of India...not surprising given the size of India.  It was fun to get to try some different food...

like this dish, called "dosa."  It was pretty good.  It's kinda like a sourdoughish crepe that you can get with lots of different sauces or fillings.  

I can't remember the names of any of the other new foods we tried, but overall the food in Kerala was very good.  They cook with a lot of seafood, coconut, peanut, etc.  It kind of reminded me of Thai food...and I liked it.  But by the end of our week there I was dying for some naan, since we were unable to find any in Kerala.  Most of the menus included naan, but the restaurants didn't ever seem to actually have naan.  It kind of seemed like, even at nice restaurants, the menus were more of a suggestion of what they might have and not so much a representation of what they were actually serving...which seems pretty typical of a developing country.  

Anyway, enough about food...back to the Christians.  Our first day in Fort Kochi we saw a bunch of people gathered on the beach.  They were there for a baptismal service, so we invited ourselves to it, and stayed to watch.  

They didn't go very far out in the ocean...instead they'd wait for a big wave to come in and dunk the person into the wave.  Here they are waiting for a big one...

Anyway, they weren't maybe so picky about complete immersion as we Mormons are, but they at least had the right idea.  

After watching the baptismal service and enjoying the talks and refreshments afterwards (J/K), we made our way along the beach for a little more sightseeing.  All along the beach there are fishermen fishing and other fishermen selling fish.  You can buy fish right from them and take it to one of the many restaurants in the area and they'll cook it for you.  But I like a little more distance between the fish I eat and the plate I eat them on...in other words, I don't want to be involved in any of the fish consumption process, except the eating part.  So I didn't buy any fish from this little guy...

especially with the feet of his friends swinging dangerously close to the fish.  As if fish itself isn't sketchy enough.  

And, as was the case with everywhere else we went in India, people wanted pictures with us.  Often it seemed like it was the richer, more well educated people who wanted pictures...maybe they were the only ones with cameras or maybe they were the only ones who thought we were cool.  

And I never did tell them that back in America I'm not cool at all.  

One morning while we were in Kerala, Marissa and I got up super early to go with three friends we made at the guest house (an older Scottish woman who was in India teaching English, a graduate student from the US, and a hot Swiss National Geographic photographer) to an "elephant sanctuary" about an hour away.  I didn't put "elephant sanctuary" in quotes to suggest it was an elephant torture camp, but because I thought it would be a big place with hundreds of retired elephants but instead it was just the banks of a slow flowing river where there were five or six elephants getting their morning bath from their mahouts (elephant drivers).  

Even though it wasn't quite as I imagined it would be, it was still cool because it was just us, the elephants, the mahouts, and a few fellow tourists.  It was early morning and there was steam coming off the river and we could hear beautiful music coming from a Christian church service on the hill overlooking the river.  It was quite a serene scene. 

The elephants seemed to enjoy their baths...this little guy in front is so relaxed he has his mouth wide open.  Aaaaaaaaah his actions seemed to say.  

They cut up coconut husks to make the brushes they scrub the elephants with. When I learned we'd be seeing the elephants bathe I imagined the elephants lathered in bubble bath, but they didn't use any type of soap...just water and a good coconut husk scrubbing.  I don't know why they'd use soap to clean the elephants...I've seen elephants bathe in Thailand and they didn't use soap there either.  Maybe soap dries out the elephants' skin...I don't know.  

To make a short story long, let me pause here to tell you about power outages in India...they are pretty much a daily occurrence.  During the month we were in India I'd guess that the power went out for at least some portion of the day every day except maybe two or three days.  All of our hotels on the "tourist belt" of Delhi, Jaipur, Agra, and Varanasi had generators of some sort so the power outages didn't affect us for long.  McLeodganj in the north had pretty decent power...I think the power loss free days we did enjoy in India were all in the McLeodganj area.  But the power went out every single day that we were in Kerala.  

Depending on what part of the day the power went out I was sometimes able to do my hair.  But a couple of days we left early to sight-see and there was no power.  And no power for Becca means no hairdryer or flat iron which leads to dangerously low levels of self-esteem.  I pretty much have two options when I can't do my hair.  Option 1)wear a hat and look like a Lesbian...I just don't look good in hats, or 2)wear a do-rag and look like a cancer fighter.  And since I prefer to look like neither a Lesbian or cancer survivor I like electricity...a lot.

But, the morning of the elephant baths we had no electricity.  So, to make a long story short, I know I look dumb in these pictures.  I guess awareness is the first step.  

I took a ton of pictures of the elephants.  I guess because I really like elephants and think they are cool.  Any animal with a 22 month gestation period, followed by the delivery of a 230ish pound baby deserves some special attention.  

We got to get super up close and personal with the elephants.  It was fun but a little scary since elephants are responsible for about 500 human deaths a year.  But I guess with a world population of seven billion people...odds are that I wouldn't get killed by an elephant...although I guess I was increasing my chances by standing right in front of it and grabbing its trunk.  But, the good news is that I survived and am living to tell you all about it.  

Just a cool picture of a mahout driving his elephant out of the water...

These Asian elephants are pretty small compared to their African cousins.  

This guy is going after a little snack in the bushes after taking his morning swim.  I don't know what it is about swimming but it always gives me the munchies too...I guess some things are universal between species.  

I guess this elephant's mahout missed a spot so he had to rinse himself!

I mentioned that we made friends with, and hung out a couple of days with three people from our hostel...one who was a good looking Swiss National Geographic photographer.  He was such a nice guy and it was fun traveling around with him and seeing him take pictures.  It's too bad he wasn't Mormon and that my self-esteem was dangerously low because we would have made a great couple!  

He took an amazing picture of this lady...so, if it ever ends up being like the famous Afghan girl picture then I guess I'll have a little claim to fame too since I was there when he took it!  

We also went with our new found friends to a cultural show in Fort Kochi.  It was, as are all the cultural shows I've ever been to in Asia, quite weird but quite interesting as well.  

Two of the days we were there we got some sunshine during the day and took a ferry and an interesting and sort of long local bus ride to a better beach for swimming.  It was gorgeous and the water was nice and warm but we didn't do much more than wade because the Indians don't really wear swimming suits...at least not in this part of India.  So any of them who were swimming were doing so fully clothed and we weren't really too keen on the idea of that long bus ride/ferry ride back to Fort Kochi soaking wet.  

So we just lay out in our swimming suits covered up with our clothes and read our books.  It was still fun though and was just nice to be on a warm beach.  The above picture was the view we had.  Two tourists, a guy and a girl, near us were lying out in their swimming suits and it wasn't long before a group of about 10 men were gathered sitting on the rocks above them just staring at them and taking pictures.  The Indians are kind of shameless about staring.  

We got pictures taken of us too, but at least we were clothed.  I find modesty to be kinda weird in India.  Because I was being kind a slutty wearing my knee-length shorts that day and yet most of the women only wear a half shirt under their sari.  So their bellies...often even fat bellies, are just hanging out.  So, in their culture the belly must be okay to show but the legs not...it's kind of weird because in our culture it is more inappropriate to show the belly.  

It was fun to watch the Indian tourists splashing around in the water fully clothed.  Some of the women even went all the way in wearing their saris (dresses)!

Some things are universal...teenage guys.  These guys were taking pretend romantic, washed up on the beach, pictures of each other.  I'm pretty sure they were pretending anyway...they were sure laughing a lot and were having a hard time posing.  It was fun watching them...and was nice to have someone taking pictures and have it not be of us for once!

The Kochi area has water everywhere...there's even a little town in the area called the Venice of India because they have canals instead of streets.  We took a day tour on the Kerala backwaters.  It was so peaceful and beautiful and was fun to boat on by the local people's houses and see them out doing their daily activities.  

A peaceful view of the Kerala backwaters...

This woman was an Indian tourist on our boat trip.  She wanted a picture with me and I was glad because I wanted a picture with her too.  

Men transporting goods on the backwaters...

This is the type of boat we took our backwater tour on. It is a houseboat, as the back part of the boat has lodging, so you can even stay overnight on the water if you want to, but we were too cheap to do it.  

We had a beautiful, clear day for the tour.  It seemed like it rained so much while we were in Kerala, but it really mostly rained in the late afternoon and evening and all night...so we got some nice travel time.  

Two cute little ladies that we watched making jute...

India's most annoying couple.  It's a well known fact that approximately 50% of all couples are completely annoying to anyone outside of their little couple.  Especially newlyweds.  These two were the epitome of newlywed annoying-ness.  They were Indian tourists from the north.  Marissa and I actually were very entertained by their complete obliviousness to everyone and everything around them.  In their defense they were really nice, and even, at the end of the tour shared some scary Indian candy with us, but they were in another world every other second until they finally, after several hours of being on the tour, acknowledged us when they turned around and handed me that sketchy candy.  

Let me just give you a couple examples of their state of oblivion so you won't just think we were being jerks in being bugged by them...and, just for the record, Marissa was as equally bugged/entertained by them, so it's not just me either.  First of all they didn't listen to the tour guide so they asked questions about things he had just explained and were never back to the boat on time when we got off to tour something.  I'm pretty sure their heads were just filled with "la, la, la" sounds and pictures of colorful hearts dancing around.  They sat at the front of the boat taking 5000 pictures of each other, kissing, leaning their heads on each other, completely blocking our view and any opportunity for Marissa or me to take a decent picture.  And...at one point they started looking through the girl's purse, found what looked like a little hygiene kit from a hotel or something, pulled out a couple of Q-tips, which the guy then used to CLEAN OUT HIS EARS and then proceeded to throw the used Q-tips into the water.  What the H?  That was when Marissa and I couldn't hold it in any longer and began to laugh uncontrollably.  Luckily, with oblivious people, they are too out of it to know you're laughing at them.  

Anyway, I know I took a lot of room explaining all that, but I don't think Marissa and I will ever think of the backwaters tour and not think of that couple.  And, a few days later, we ran into the same couple at the beach and they, off of their romantic group boat ride, came right up to us and were acting like we were all best friends who had bonded on our boat trip and wanted a picture with us.  So weird!  Anyway, I'd like to publicly thank them for entertaining us with their annoyingness.  

This is a picture of jackfruit.  It grows from the trunk of the tree instead of from the branches and it get super huge.  It's kind of slimy but kind of has a decent flavor.

I just thought this was a cool picture of these men sitting in a boat playing chess or checkers or something.  I'm always impressed with people who play chess and checkers because I don't know how to play either.  I guess I could learn but I must not really want to.  

I just love these old Hindustan Ambassador cars they have all over India...I especially love that not much has changed about the body style since the 1950's.  It is cool to see new "old" cars everywhere.  

That particular one was even new enough to be "having mobile charger facility" in it!  

While we were in Fort Kochin I took a cooking class.  I know...such a cliché thing to do.  But I've always wanted to take a cooking class while traveling abroad.  And I love Indian food.  I rarely travel anywhere and stay long enough to do anything but see the main tourist sites, but with a week just in Kerala, I had plenty of time for cooking classes and such.  

This is the lady, Mrs Leelu Roy, I took the cooking class from.  She was a pretty good teacher but she showed us how to make quite a few dishes and, although I was frantically scribbling notes, I wonder if I'd even understand what I wrote now, and would even be able to cook anything she taught us.  I guess I should try.  

As I mentioned before the food in Kerala is kind of like a fusion of the more typical central Indian food mixed with Thai food.  It was good but I think I like the more typical daal, naan, and curry.  

After you learn how to make all the food you get to sit down and eat everything...so that was nice.  

One of the days that we were in Kerala we took a private tour (we learned our lesson from the backwaters tour) to Munnar...a hilly area in Kerala with lots of tea plantations, rubber plantations, and spice farms.  You could actually smell a mix of spices in the air as we drove with our windows down...it was a wonderful smorgasbord of smells.  

Here's a cute little rubber plantation worker who showed us, as well as he could given that he didn't speak English, how they harvest the rubber.  

Munnar, and the whole drive there were just green, green, green...so beautiful.  As you can see though, we had another powerless morning, and my hair (and consequently self-esteem) were less than beautiful.  

We passed lots of waterfalls along the way...

I liked this "Jesus is Savior" rock in the middle of the rushing river...Kerala is so Christian!  So weird after being in the rest of India and only having it be Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh stuff everywhere. 

We stopped along the way to ride an elephant.  I'd ridden them before in Thailand but Marissa only had gotten one turbo elephant ride up to the fort in Jaipur, so we thought we'd try again to have a more natural riding experience...and it was better this time.  Although the other times I've ridden an elephant it has either been up on a kind of chair saddle or down right on the elephant's neck with its ears flapping against my legs (the coolest way to ride if you ever get the chance).  But this time they just had a blanket draped over the elephant and we just straddled it like a horse.  I was on the back and let me tell you...the back of an elephant is wide...super wide.  I thought for sure my hips were going to pop right out of their sockets.  Fortunately they didn't, but it wasn't the most comfortable elephant ride I've ever been on.  

I thought this was a cool shot...I like the lighting.  

If you look closely, I'm kind of smiling, kind of wincing in pain, and mostly just worried about how I knew I wouldn't like the picture because I was wearing a hat.

Our view...did you know that elephants have really dark, coarse, pokey hair on their heads?  See, reading my long posts are worthwhile...that may come up in conversation some day and then you'll be all smart about elephant heads.  

We passed yet another waterfall on the way to Munnar...water water everywhere...

and another.

We ate passionfruit picked fresh.  It was the best passionfruit I've ever eaten...passionfruit is a little snot-like in texture but has an amazing flavor.  

We stopped at a spice farm and got to see these guys working with all the spice plants...vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper...you name it, they had it there.  It was really interesting to see the different parts of the plants that spices come from.  

And then we finally got to Munnar where we got to visit the tea plantations.  It was so beautiful...it was getting misty and rainy when we got there which made it kind of hard to get good pictures but made me less mad about not being able to do my hair that morning...since it would have gotten messed up anyway.  

Here are a bunch of women harvesting tea leaves. 

They just trim the leaves with big shears like you would prune a bush with.  

It was just so beautiful and green.  At the end of the tea tour they offer you a sample of their tea.  We said no thanks and walked along our way.  A friendly Indian tourist saw us refusing the tea and stopped us to inform us that the tea was free...and was delicious.  We then had to explain that we didn't drink tea (not the first time we had to do this in India) and the Indian tourist looked at us like we were crazy people from another planet.  Indians drink tea all day and all night so I'm sure it's super weird to them to find someone who doesn't!

It got rainier and colder as the day went on...

and the monkeys had to snuggle to get warm.  

We stopped at the market before leaving Munnar.  

Here's a guy selling that nasty betel nut and leaves that all the men chew and spit everywhere.  Seriously, something I don't miss about India!

A friendly little vegetable vendor...

We headed back to Fort Kochi, enjoying the beautiful views along the way as well as the Indian Bollywood music our driver had blaring from the radio.  The drive just wouldn't have been complete without the music (no sarcasm intended).  

The long and winding road back...

We stopped at a viewpoint for a picture and this man came running up to me saying "one picture? one picture?" as he threw, practically literally, his toddler granddaughter into my arms.  So, I smiled and just decided to stop worrying about all the ugly pictures there are of me somewhere on SD cards in India.  I guess with over a billion Indians in the world, I'm very unlikely to ever run into any of those who have ugly pictures of me ever again.  And...who knows, maybe if I do, I'll look better next time and they can get a new picture of me. That would be nice.  

One last beautiful view...

and a stop at a cathedral in an area where it rains so much that even Jesus needs an umbrella!

I'm glad I took the blue shirt in the picture above to India because it reminds me of an Indian punjabi.  And I looked at the tag, and it said "made in India"  So it was made in India, I bought it at Maurices, and then I wore it back to India...so it made full circle I guess!  

Back in Fort Kochi for one last rainy day.  I love the huge trees in the background...

and that people play soccer everywhere...all day...pretty much in the whole world minus the United States.  

We saw an Indian soap opera being filmed...it seemed just like ours...super dramatic.  The scene we saw being filmed was an old guy in a wheelchair at the end of the pier.  Not sure if he was suicidal or professing his love to a 20 year old or something, but there was definitely drama in the air.  

Then we went to a museum at a Catholic monastery where the Indian version of Ben Stiller gave us a tour of the place.  He was actually working at the ticket booth but as soon as we bought our tickets and headed inside we found him back at our side.  I guess he wanted to give us a VIP tour.  It was so funny...he truly looked so much like Ben Stiller...just in Indian form.  And he was smiling and snapping and winking all over the place as he gave us our tour.  It was way too funny and it took all our willpower for us to not burst out laughing.  

Just like in parts of Africa straight dudes hold hands with their guy friends...I just had to get a picture because it's so weird to me.  I just can't imagine one of my brothers walking along a boardwalk holding hands with one of their friends.  

They have all these weird animal garbage cans that say "use me" all along the beach...but, judging by the litter everywhere, they don't get used.  I'm pretty sure Australia donated them to India because there were Kangaroos, and Koalas and other weird marsupial type animals.  They painted on the Hindu red dot though...probably to be culturally sensitive?

Fort Kochi is one of the only places in the world where they still fish in this ancient Chinese way of fishing with big nets that they lower into the water.  This way of fishing was introduced to the Indians in Kerala in the 1400's by a Chineese explorer.  So, I guess it must be a somewhat profitable way of fishing if it has been around for that long!

Oh, and I forgot to mention...besides Christians, Kerala is also full of Communists...I'm sure there are even a lot of Christian Communists.  So there are a lot of Commie political signs.  It's kind of weird because India is a republic like the United States is, but within that system they have Communist politicians who run for office.  Weird.  

But I guess when you're away from your home country lots of things seem weird...like the fact that there is a separate male and female line to buy a ticket for the ferry.  

You can see the two lines here...Gents and Ladies.  

There was a Christian book-ship docked at Fort Kochi while we were there.  It was a huge old cruise ship that moves around the world bringing a big, cheaply priced bookstore, to people in areas where books are not so cheap or easy to come by.  It was pretty interesting.  We bought a copy of War and Peace for a friend we made in Fort Kochi who loved to read and specifically wanted to read that book (why, I don't know).  He got choked up when we gave it to him...so, the book-ship visit was definitely worth it...for 3 bucks we made a man's day and, they had soft-serve chocolate ice cream and Americanish brownies for sale on board so we made our own day as well!  (Please disregard the shiny face...it was hot, and humid...super humid!)

We visited the beautiful beach one last time and said goodbye to Kerala.  

And now I'm saying goodbye to you too.  If you survived this post, leave me a comment as evidence! 

Peace, 

Becca