Nomadic Tourists in the Land of Coconuts

So,

I survived the first train ride!!! And the two that followed, as well as hopefully the one tonight (although I was more fortunate than others, who just barely survived). Our group was dropping like flies last week with various forms of the shit-pukes, and that didn’t stop on the train…poor things. Abby spent most of the train ride either in the toilet or sitting outside, barf bag in hand, while a group of Indian men stared at her like “what the hell is wrong with this green-faced girl!?” Ah, the joys of being sick while traveling…I wouldn’t know though, since I’ve been lucky so far and hoping to keep it that way as long as possible...

Anyways, on a happier note everyone is back to themselves now and the trip is going GREAT! But, before I get into the details of our recent touring, I’d like to take just a moment to refute the negative connotation that has developed (it seems) around the words tourism and tourist. Chris told us in Pondicherry that much of our first month in India would be spent doing ‘touristy’ things while we ‘acclimatize.’ I thought about this and realized I wouldn’t want it any other way and I don’t think tourists deserve the stigma. They take the initiative to abandon their comfy lives (in our case at least) and put themselves in uncomfortable, unfamiliar, expensive and sometimes even scary situations and in doing so become global citizens who can understand and appreciate other cultures, languages and religions. We are not yet (as you will see) global citizens, but we’re taking the initiative to immerse ourselves in a whole different world than the ones we know and that’s nothing to be scoffed at. End of rant, don’t hate on the tourists..they’re not all bad!

We awoke after our 10-hour train ride from Pondicherry to Kanyakumar and looking outside the window I saw MOUNTAINS! There were rice paddies and palm trees and fluorescent-coloured houses, not to mention the usual cow sightings. Traveling by train isn’t all that bad, if you don’t mind the close quarters and the company of many cockroaches (they’re small though). Furthermore, it gave us a great opportunity to get to know Indian people, who have continued to amaze me with their 1) proficiency in English 2) friendliness and 3) overall cheerfulness, curiosity and willingness to help. The two men in our compartment offered to take the top bunks (the bunks are more like human-sized shelves stacked 3-high on each side), so that we could keep our backpacks on the ground and close to us.

We spent two days in Kanyakumari, the southernmost tip of India. It was BEAUTIFUL! We saw lots of brightly coloured fishing boats, a big white church with multi-coloured flags flying in the wind, a massive street market (where we found REAL pearl earrings for 50 cents)! We visited an old fort, a beach, a temple and watched the sunset over the Indian Ocean. We brought a bunch of tennis balls to India, having been informed that kids LOVE them and on the second morning we were wandering down a back lane and decided to gave a couple away. As soon as one tennis ball was produced we were swarmed by Indian children, all wanting a ball.

Unfortunately, we hadn’t anticipated this and only had a few… we quickly realized the tennis balls were more of a status symbol than something they could share and play with, but by then it was too late and we had interfered (probably for the worse) with the social organization of that group of children. I felt pretty crappy about that for the rest of the day, but learned a valuable lesson about the naivety of charity and how important it is to be very careful not to do more harm than good.

The next night we caught the night train from Kanyakumari to Coimbatore, and while we were waiting for our bus to transfer us from the hotel to the station, we started talking to an older man in the lobby:

Indian man (to group of us): Where are you all from?

Kat: Canada!

Indian man (with heavy accent): Mhmmm, where?

Kat (using big arm gestures and speaking extra slow): Canada, like North America? It’s across the Atlantic…Above the United States!

Indian Man: Ah, yes I meant where in Canada…I am from Richmond Hill.

Hoots of laughter ensued, Kat turned slightly red…You can never forget just how small the world really is!

Coimbatore: We stayed at a really nice hotel, the first with wi-fi, which lifted everyone’s spirits (especially those lugging their laptops along). In the afternoon, we visited one of the best universities in India, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, where we had some very interesting talks about agriculture and education in India. The evening was spent mostly at a huge department store FULL of Indian clothes…a group of us went and were overwhelmed by the amount of colours, patterns and materials they had…Indian fashion is really incredible, I still am amazed at the wonderful clothes I see women wearing, they always look fantastic!

The next day, we took a bus up into the mountains, to a more remote town called Ooty. The temperature dropped significantly but was embraced by most of us…I’d almost forgotten what goose bumps were! We stopped at an outreach program run by Tamil Nadu University, which was working on using cow poop and pee to make organic pesticides and fertilizers..very cool stuff. We saw a rose garden with more than 3,000 different kinds of roses and we visited a botanical garden and a tea factory. For lunch, we went to one of the nicest hotels I’ve ever seen, right on top of the hills looking over the town and all the terracing. We had an amazingly delicious and care-free meal, eating all kinds of fruits, vegetables and even meat, and drinking the water provided to us (you mean we don’t need to buy bottled water!?) Yeahh, it was a good day.

The next morning we caught the train from Coimbatore to Cochin at 5:30 a.m, easy peasy by now. Cochin (also known as Kochi) is a much more touristy area on the Western coast of India and I was surprised at how many tourists there are here, most of them from Europe. We ate lunch at the rooftop restaurant in our hotel, and with views of palm trees and ocean and brightly coloured houses, I honestly didn’t feel at all like I was in a ‘developing’ country. India is pretty well-developed from what I have seen so far, and I have not experienced the reduced standard of living I expected to. Although, to be fair, this might change once I get the chance to live with a family instead of in an air-conditioned hotel.

We spent the afternoon wandering along the waterfront, where there was a long sidewalk with a never-ending supply of vendors trying to sell us jewelers, fish, snacks, pop, ice cream, toys, souvenirs and postcards. The tourists have really made a booming business for the locals of Cochin.

Yesterday, a group of us organized to do a backwaters boat tour, where we were guided through some of the rivers and small channels that cut through the islands and peninsula of Cochin. We rode a huge boat made out of wood and coconut-fiber ropes, propelled by one man on each end of the boat using long sticks to push off the shallow mud bottom.  We stopped at a house and learned how coconut exteriors are soaked and woven into rope (they need to be soaked in the river for 6 months!), and we also saw pepper growing on a mango tree. The man guiding us explained the Kera means coconut, and la means land, so the province we are in (Kerala) means the land of coconuts! At night, we all went to the local arts center to see the Kathakali dancers, who performed a bunch of cultural dances and songs and wowed us with their crazy facial expressions and costumes. They had elaborate outfits and the men were dressed as women with heavy makeup and yellow face paint, it was pretty cool.

Today was a slow-paced day, but I got to try a fruit I’d never even heard of before called a sour sop (hopefully that’s spelt properly). Anyway, it’s a small green ball with spikes, but has this white fleshy fruit on the inside and some black bean-like seeds…everyone was saying it was like eating brains but I thought it was delicious! I also was shocked to see peanut butter on the shelf of a small grocery store… I just couldn’t resist and am now armed with two bananas and a small tub of PB, all I need now is some naan and I’ll be one happy monkey! Tonight we leave for Turtle Bay on the train again…we are on the train basically every other night but it’s proven to be a great way to see a lot of places in a small span of time. Turtle Bay apparently has no electricity of internet and is very isolated, but I’m looking forward to finally getting to swim in the ocean and do some snorkeling! Well, that’s it for now, adieu.