Kerala Trip

Well it was a really big weekend so I am sure that this will be an extremely long post. On Thursday night 8 girls got on a train to Varkala. I have decided that night sleeper trains are the only way to travel! It was awesome. The chairs fold into beds so you can sleep flat while you are on your way across the country. You just use your stuff as a pillow so that it is safe. The only problem was that we thought that the train would stop for longer than it did and half of us could not get off when it came to our stop. So, the other half of us stayed on the train until the next stop (45min later) which happened to be in the middle of nowhere. So we jumped off in a field and walked to the street and found a Rickshaw to take us to the bus station and headed back to Varkala. When we got there we went straight to the beach and walked around but we didn’t stay for long because we wanted to get on our suits. It was a really touristy beach- so skin was okay. In India hotels will always tell you that they have rooms even when they are full. They make deals with surrounding hotels to ship over the business for a profit. So they did that to us- but it wasn’t a bad deal because we didn’t want to spend a long time there anyways. There was no hot water, sheets, or pillows, and the only source of light we had was a red light. But it was relatively close to the beach, and that was all that we wanted. So we got changed and went to eat lunch at a place called the juice shop. We got pancakes and omelets and wonderful juices. When you order juice in India they actually put fruit in a blender and make you juice. Sometimes it has sugar and water in it, but others times it is pure juice. It is SO good. The one I got at the juice shop had coconut juice, orange, pineapple, banana , and peanut butter in it! After that we went to the beach and laid out for a few hours underneath an umbrella. We even saw a whale of some kind. We didn’t get in the water to much because the current was REALLY strong and it was a little scary, but it was still a lot of fun. Then we went and got some lunch and drinks on the beach (first beer in public we have seen in India). They brought out the beer bottle wrapped in newspaper and served us in coffee cups. They have to be discrete because it is too expensive to get a liquor license, so they just do not get one. It was quite funny. We stayed on the beach until sunset and showered and went to a place for dinner called the Kerala Coffee House where we got amazing fish and prawn dishes as we listened to the beach and watched the fisher boats float across the water. After that we walked down the beach and found a place that was playing music. They led us in to the front of the restaurant where we took our shoes off and sat around a table on the floor. There we drank Mohitos and watched Indian boys dance. They don’t dance like white boys- so it was extremely entertaining. We got up and danced too and they tried to play American music that they thought we would like, but it was a lot of Techno. We danced anyways. There were a few power outages while we were there, so we became very good at traveling by flashlight or torch as our friends would call it.

The next day we got up and got on a bus to Kolum where we did a back water tour. It is the main thing to do in Sothern India. We got in a little canoe and a local took us around the waterways of his village that they use as streets. It was amazing to see that people lived there. It was a spectacular tropical surrounding and they lived a very simple life there. Some in thatch houses, and others in more modern ones. They do have cable TV though. The government provided that to most of the country to win over votes and use it as a persuasion technique. Our guide was great though. He showed us touch me not plants, cashew trees, tapicioca plants, prawn farms, jack fruit, mango trees, pineapple bushes and more. We also stopped and watched them make rope out of coconut hair. Further down the river we stopped and a coconut farmer climbed a tree and cut us fresh coconuts for us. We drank the milk and ate the meat from the middle. We also saw a few king fisher birds which are very pretty bright blue. Steve and Jean you would have loved it. Google it. That is really all that we did in Kolum so we went and got on a train to Allopy where we stayed at a Hippy. It was run by a bunch of men our age that live there and just hang out. They have this big open atrium with hamocks and Christmas lights and they play really good music there all the time. We ate dinner and breakfast there and it was glorious to just hang out, listen to music, and watch the other people around us. It was a lot of couples. We then got on another bus to Kochi.

There we ran into some problems. We went to our hotel to check in and were very excited because we had sheets, towels and beds that were not made of straw. But we went down to give them our passports and they told us that we couldn’t stay in the city because of a warning put out by city about terrorist. One of our girls had a Sri Lankin passport. Even though she has lived in Australia for 10 years and has an Australian Visa they were afraid she was a terrorist. So the hotel sent us to the police station. One of the police were going to give us the paper work we needed but- just like the rickshaw drivers do- they talked amongst themselves and the one guy was talked out of it. So we had to get in a ferry and cross the bay to another office that was quite nice about it and gave us the paper work and told us that there was no need for them to not allow us to stay. They really thought that one tiny Sri Lankin, 3 white American girls, and a little girl from Singapore were going to blow up the country…it was stupid, but no one wanted to take the responsibility for anything if it were to happen. I hit my head really hard on the fairy too so I had a headache for the rest of the night. It sucked and we were a little afraid that we might get arrested, but at the same time it was just another really good awakening that the world is not perfect. It was another storey that was scary at the time but makes a great memory afterwards. That night we went to a Kathakali dance in the oldest theater in India. It was cool, but not as cool as we were hoping… But it could have been because we were tired, hungry, thirsty, and mad about the persecution. For diner we go two plates of desserts because we were so fed up with the day.

In the morning we found the most wonderful place EVER! It was just what we all needed. For breakfast they served us an omelet with potatoes green peppers onions and tomatoes, whole wheat toast with butter and watermelon. The best part of all was that they had AMERICAN BREWED COFFEE! Coffee here is watered down with tons of milk and sugar. It tastes okay, but it is not nearly the same as we can get at home. We even got it iced which was great because you cannot get anything with ice in it, so it is usually room temp. We sat there for a really long time too. For lunch we went to a tea shop where they had actual proper chocolate cake! Cake here sucks! There is not nearly enough sugar and they are quite dense and dry. This one was actually good. I ate two pieces…

We didn’t eat dinner and got back on the new night train and came back to Vellore. This train was not nearly as nice, and it was a rough night’s sleep so we did not go to school today. Plus it is Leslie’s birthday. So we are going to catch up on all of our stuff and head to school tomorrow.

It was basically a weekend of relaxing, eating, and drinking, and more relaxing. But it was really a great way to spend our halfway at CMC point! The new girl from Zimbabwe came with us too. She goes to school at Oxford. You think India is rough, you should try living in Zimbabwe. She got whipped by the police around Christmas time because she didn’t stop fast enough for the president’s car she handles it well and still wants to move back there after school so she can make a difference but it is really messed up there and we got to learn about that too. Hope all is well in America. I got a Hindi paper cover with Obama on it. I think I am going to frame it and put it in the basement...