Kerala - India 18

Calicut was my first stop in Kerala. The city was much like any city, except it had a beach area for people in the evening. I ate some fish, parboiled rice, and a red banana almost as big as my head and took a stroll around town.

On a hill near an observatory I found an allyway with a drainage ditch running down it. It was picturesque and lightly dusted with brilliant green most. On the wall of this alleyway was one of the smallest advertisements I had seen: a bumper sticker size metal placard reading "Sign World ->". This seems like a well thought-out method of advertising for their business.

Around the corner from the hole-in-the-wall sign shop I found a canal running between light industry and poor housing. I followed the canal past 3 football (soccer) games, at each I was invited to play, several thatch huts, each for a family although about the size of a bedroom, and a series of lumber mills, each with a small logjam of waiting material slowly collescing in the canal.

Kerala, a former Portuguese colony, is a soccer state. While cricket is still popular, the main sport is football. Even little kids stay up late with their parents to watch the World Cup. Like most of India, parts are also very poor: maybe one of three footballs was an adidas style black and white hexagon ball. The others were a white volleyball styled Gaelic football and a brown ball harkening back from before 1970.

I continued leisurely down the canal, intending to reach the ocean, until I came across a group of puppies lying on the bank. As I came near, they all went trotting off. A few steps past their resting place, the path was fringed with tall grass. Just as I came to the fringe a copper colored snake as thick as my fist slithered off. At this point I decided to backtrack and take a log and plank footbridge (one log wide) across the canal to the road.

Cochin is a tourist town. While the traditional island still has fishing industry, the main focus of the area seems to be the tourist trade. Consequently, fruit and everything else one can negotiate for are quite expensive. I stopped by the Jewish cemetary, the old, still in use, Synagogue, and a nice cathedral. Outside each, particularly in Jewtown, were shops with all sorts of products from other parts of India for sale. One shop sold Jewish religious items, and had the temerity to price them higher than in the U.S. Even if I had bargained, the quality wasn't worth the price.

In Cochin and its sister city, Ernakulum, there are a fair number of luxury/middle class hotels for $20-80. I stopped in a couple to see if they could recommend an ayurvedic massage. Again, I ran into the problem of being in a tourist town. The sticker shock of American prices, even from possible medical specialists was just too much. I relaxed with a Bollywood movie instead.

I relaxed into a 9pm showing, which, surprisingly, was full of kids. Apparently the 6pm showing runs against the normal eating time of families and is filled with teenagers. By 9pm parents can have everyone fed and bring the little ones to the theater. I had a lovely talk explaining my day to a young one who knew just enough English.

When I came back to my Rs70/night hotel I was locked out and the proprietor was asleep in a bednet on the couch. I had to bang on the wall for 10min to wake him up and let me in. I love übercheap hotels (In this one, my room was not entirely enclosed with walls but had wire mesh for the upper portion).

On the way to the trainstation I stopped at a cool bar. About every 4th or 5th shop here had fruit, an ice chest, and a juice machine. For Rs12-15 I could get a glass of fresh orange, pineapple, grape or other juice. These shops also sold snacks and candies. The rent must be cheap, because the competition was extremely numerous.