We took a shower because we were all ripe after that long drive! Then we went to the Cochin cultural center to watch Kathakali – Kerala’s Classical Dance Drama. We went early to watch them put the elaborate makeup on.
We passed Andrea’s iPad around to play trivial pursuit before it started. The only pie piece I got was a NASCAR question – don’t ask me why! They had a famous actor come out and do a demonstration of some of the aspects of the dance, facial expressions etc. The guy did the weirdest things with his eyeballs!! Then we watched a performance. That was Zach’s favorite part – NOT J Although we enjoyed it, we were starving and a little uncomfortable surrounded by white people! All these travelers from Europe were at the same performance. I can’t remember the last time I was around that many white people – it was weird.
We walked to a restaurant for dinner and then walked around Kochi some. It was quiet and you could see the Chinese fishing nets. Apparently sunset is the time to go because that’s when they are being used. Zach spotted a tiny puppy so we all had to ooh and ahh over it. Now anyone that knows me knows I am not a pet person. I would never hurt an animal, but I don’t choose to spend a lot of time with them or get emotional over them – especially when they cause me to have to get rabies shots! The others were in love with this dog and wanted to take him with us! I said no. They thought of me as the ‘wet blanket” or “party pooper”. I personally see myself as the voice of reason!!! We can’t take a puppy with us on our tour. Seriously. Voice of reason and practicality.
Day two.
The AC was cold in the room and I got up in the middle of the night to find extra blankets but there were none and I didn’t want to wake Andrea up to find out where the remote for the AC was so I got towels from the bathroom to try to keep warm! The beds were decent – I think they had actual springs in them, which is rare in India.
We went down to eat the hotel breakfast of eggs (real eggs!), Indian pancakes and aloo (potatoes). We started chatting with the other guests and there was a group of 18 family members all from Mumbai traveling through Kerala. It was fun to talk to them about where they are going (about the same Itinerary as us so we expect to run into them elsewhere) and they were telling us “must sees” in India. We keep asking how to say “no, I don’t want it in” Hindi and we keep forgetting. We asked a chatty lady about it and we talked about how people tend to try to screw us over because we’re tourists. She said our country does the same to her people – ha! Touché! Visitors to any foreign country have that problem I guess. Since we live here we like to know some phrases so that people know we aren’t ordinary tourists and mean business when we say no!
Andrea was in the front again and Nancy, Zach and I were in the back and we had a little more room than we did yesterday. Our driver was nice and played some Indian music for us and was chatting with Andrea. Somehow the conversation morphed into Andrea teaching the driver how to say “asshole” in Spanish! Ha! He was embarrassed and we were laughing! We stopped at the tour company Paradise Tours and were greeted by very friendly workers who took our huge piles of rupees. Zach is the one that booked the tour for us and he was amazed at what the tiny office looked like because the website was so sophisticated. Our driver stopped at an ATM so we could replenish our cash. Andrea was dancing to the music coming out of the car trying to entertain the guards at the ATM. They were not amused and said a few things to our driver. I’m pretty sure it was close to “good luck with these crazy white people” We drove a really long time through very windy roads. It started POURING. Oh monsoon – why are you still here? Of course it starting pouring when we got the pretty parts when we would want to take pictures. We went to a spice plantation and took a little tour. They grow some amazing stuff – we bought spices and chocolate. Well, Andrea and Nancy bought spices and Zach and I got chocolate. We drove near some very cool waterfalls and we stopped to get a good view and there were some monkeys These are the same type of monkeys that attacked me and are the reason I am now in the rabies shot series. but these were very well behaved monkeys – none jumped on us! Zach wasted perfectly good chocolate feeding them.
We started driving again – and I felt like I was in a NASCAR race except for there were lots of vehicle including huge busses driving straight at us and huge cliffs on the side. Scary. Zach yelled at the driver to stop and he jumps out of the car and runs across the road. The driver looks at what he is doing and makes a noise and runs out of the car – Zach had found the largest scorpion ever. The Guiness Book of World Record People weren’t here, but I am going to go ahead and call it. Largest Scorpion EVER. It was so disgusting. Our driver was impressed though.
We started driving again – and I felt like I was in a NASCAR race except for there were lots of vehicle including huge busses driving straight at us and huge cliffs on the side. Scary. Zach yelled at the driver to stop and he jumps out of the car and runs across the road. The driver looks at what he is doing and makes a noise and runs out of the car – Zach had found the largest scorpion ever. The Guiness Book of World Record People weren’t here, but I am going to go ahead and call it. Largest Scorpion EVER. It was so disgusting. Our driver was impressed though.
We continue to drive along the very bumpy, curvy roads in the pouring rain while car dancing to the cool Indian songs and singing to the stupid ones that had lyrics like “I’m the best, I’m the best, tell me again, I’m the best” and some song that said Ding Dong over and over and used my name, BJ. The road started getting worse and our driver pulled over. We asked what was going on and he said “you get in another car, it too dangerous for this one” ok then. So they cram our luggage into the back of a jeep and Nancy, Zach and I pile in the back. We can’t even see Andrea in the front through all the luggage. We are packed in there and Zach said it was like riding in a C130 when he was in the marines.
The road was horrible!. Horrible!! It was probably good we couldn’t see out of the jeep. We were bouncing and sliding and it was wet. We get up to the “lobby” – a small hut where the cutest Indian man greeted us. They served us tea and he introduced us to the cook. This resort has luxury tents and tree houses and is very remote. It was about 4:30 and dinner wasn’t until 6:30 so they wanted to take all four of us to one tree house until dinner. The other three get in the back and I get in the front, not knowing the cook is coming with us. So the driver tells me to scoot in the middle – so now I am straddling the stick shift. The next part of the ride involves the driver having his hand between my legs to shift gears and the stick vibrating on my thigh. I’m squealing as we are sliding in the dark, in the rain on the road and the whole car load of people are laughing…
Our room is amazing! It is a cute little treehouse with a balcony. They built the house around a tree so there is a huge tree growing through the bedroom. The views are tremendous. You can see the hills covered in tea plants. It is so beautiful, but chilly here. We had to put on long sleeves and socks. Andrea says she hasn’t worn a pair of socks since we arrived in India 3 months ago. We used her I= pad again and played trivial pursuit (I did much better this time – got 5 pies) and Nancy won. We also played farkle. The man came with a flashlight to walk us down the trails to the hut where dinner is served. They served it family style and we had rice and dal – I have never seen green dal before, but it was yummy. We also had cooked veggies, fried onions and chicken and for dessert we had ice cream. Real, delicious ice cream which is hard to come by and funny that we get it way up here! There was a French family that came later and sat next to us. Our school arranged it for us to be able to do Rosetta Stone for $100 a year. Andrea chose French so she tried some out on the family - “the woman eats rice” that’s about all I know in Hindi which is the language I chose. I know milk is “dude”, apple is “seb” and I can say “the girls are swimming” and “the woman is eating rice”. I am trying to get through Hindi so I can get to a more useful language like Spanish or French.
By the time dinner was over Zach had to remove three leeches from himself. None of us have spotted any on us. I think Andrea and I might do an inspection before we leave this place! At least leeches don’t transmit rabies!! We have to find a hospital tomorrow for me to get my 2nd rabies shot – let’s hope it goes quickly and they have the vaccine.
We came back to the room and started writing thoughts down for our blogs – it is hard to remember everything that happens in a day if we don’t write it down. I’ve taken to texting myself so you guys don’t miss any of the adventure!
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