Yesterday I dived out of the rain into a little chai stall made of wood and plastic sheeting. A tourist taxi driver sat next to me and we began talking. To get the conversation away from my personal life, I started mentioning that I was intereswted in some of the colourful posters I’d seen around. This led us to talk about politics and I mentioned that I approved of a left-wing government being in power here. The taxi-driver told me he was a communist but that he was no threat to me: he saw tourists as a people to treat well in the hope of repeat business and maybe friendship.

When the rain stopped, he invited me to just sit in his car and chat: I was a little apprehensive but agreed. He told me that he had worked at a tea factory until eight years ago. Then a ‘political’ issue had arisen and the factory had closed. So now he drive for a living and made he ‘cultivated’ his ‘crop’ well.

He began inviting me to visit and eat at his house, saying it would cost me nothing (in reaction to my obvious reluctance). He also repeatedly grasped my hand and said that we weren’t friends but brothers and therefore I was in no danger. Despite this presumably being intended to reassure me, it didn’t – it made me feel even more uncomfortable and determined not to go with him.

So I refused hospitality from someone who was keen to give it to me and, at least apparently, had the financial resources.

Contrast this with my acceptance of hospitality from some lads with whom I later paid cricket in the street. After watching for a while, I was invited to join in and had a fantastic time until the rain became really strong. I was given shelter, coffee and jackfruit pieces by a few lads in a a family house: two sisters came into the front room to eat jackfruit and giggled at my presence. (They eat small pieces of the seeds’ inner coating while extracting more coated seeds for later use.) The lads and I chatted on about school, education, their jobs, personal jokes and and were really, really genial hosts.

However, in a way, I feel I forced or obliged people who may have had far less income to give me hospitality by choosing to go out without waterproofs on a day it was bound to rain. I think I only took inconsequential amounts of their resources and repaid by taking some photographs of them which I hope I can print and send to them.

… include samosas, banana bhajis and parapuwadai (not sure of the spelling but they’re patties of gram flour and sweetcorn, fried to a light brown crisp) and black tea from a wee stall just across the border in the Tamil Nadu part of Kumily.

CHOLESTEROL AHOY

	parapuwadai
	chai and deep-fried-delights stall

Amongst the intangibles, a fairly high one is being given the address of the beedi stall next to the food stall and the owner’s name. I have no idea why she gave me this: we’d hardly spoken. Yet again I wish I had taken the time to learn some Tamil!

‘Ms Beedi’ and her mum

Among the low spots, a significant one is this morning’s (Friday 26th May) disagreement with my hotel over the number of items of laundry they are due to return, partly because I was implicitly accused of not being able to count past 4. It got more insulting when the laundry bloke discounted the list he’d watched me write and agreed with as I put the items into a bag for him to take away.

Oh well, nice things yesterday included

• walking around Kumily, drawing a sketchmap of the streets and trying to photograph as much of the town as possible so a friend who was here over ten years ago can see how it’s changed since then
• encountering an elephant in my peregrinations
  

  It still seems sick to me that this poor beastie is chained up and has to endure carrying humans.

   

• sheltering from heavy rain under the eaves of a house and being joined a few children who wanted to talk
• being met by a bloke called Osaka who had an umbrella which kept us reasonably dry on the way to the warmth and dryness of a local chai shop*. He also sheltered us under it on the way back to the town centre – bless you sir!

*This is where I first encountered parapuwadai. I was also introduced to Osaka’s mate who was smoking what appeared at first to be a regular beedi. However it looked a little fatter than normal and didn’t have the tiny piece of thread that is a feature of regular beedis. This man showed me that he uses the wrapper leaves to construct joints, presumably because beedis are dirt cheap (1 rupee for 10: 1 rupee will only buy 1 filterless ‘Scissors’-brand cigarette) and cigarette papers are rare and expensive here.

Osaka’s mate told me about prices for cannabis here:

• ‘Marijuana’ (dried leaves and flowers) costs 25 rupees per gram if you buy only a few tolas* but 10 rupees per gram if you buy a kilogram or more.
• ‘Charas’ (resin) costs 100 rupees per gram if you buy small amounts. (I couldn’t understand his many quotes for the price of large amounts.)
• Cannabis oil** is also available but it’s even more expensive.

*the weight of a silver rupee: near enough 10 grams
**I have no idea how to use this: perhaps you’re meant to get your vehicle stoned and have a really wild trip to the nearest casualty department.

Osaka’s mate wasn’t at all upset when I told him I didn’t want to buy anything after this discussion: other vendors have tried much harder, claiming that they’re offering me good prices. It takes a while to get them to understand that I don’t want what they’re offering at any price.

Today I’m going to carry on mapping and photographing Kumily. It’s very interesting to see what lies behind the ‘tourist facade’ – I’m always curious about what is ‘really going on’.

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After blogging yesterday (Wednesday 24th) I returned to the street-stall where I’d eaten the previous night. The results: a Bruce full of dosa and vegetable curry but also a Bruce who had been shat on by a passing bird. One of my fellow diners told me that this was good for my character. I can understand the logic of this but I was a little pushed to wholeheartedly join in with his amusement.

The rest of this entry just a little picture-heavy.

DOSA AND BIRDSHIT DELIGHT

TEMPLES AND TOURISM
Today (Wednesday 24th) was another guided-tour day – my last, I think. This is not because I didn’t enjoy it but because I prefer not to be feel as though I’m being led by the nose all of the time. I think I’d sooner make my own mistakes, amid the occasional triumph when I manage to do something all by myself. (“Gonna take my shoes off and throw them in Periyar lake because I’ve got two feet in the water” – thank you Ms Bush!)

The descent today into Tamil Nadu wasn’t without its hairy moments but I thought at the time that I was getting used to overcrowded buses with suicidal drivers. The route dropped maybe 1000 metres in 6 or 7 km to the Tamil plains, then passed through a region of the largest fields I’ve seen in India The crops where mostly grapes and cococuts, as far as I could see, with a couple of home-grown giant religious statues near a small village called Gudalur.

vinyards

We whized past them too fast for me to photograph A few kilometers further is a town called Cumbum. (My India atlas spells it Kambam.)

It really is called Cumbum

	Statue of Gandhi in Cumbum
	Cumbum street

	temple near Cumbum bus stand
	Parvati temple nea Cumbum bus stand

From their my tour-guide took us onto the most crowded bus I’ve experienced yet. It was a wee 20-seater, so packed that two blokes were hanging out of the back doorway. (The door itself had long since been ripped out.)

A few worrisome kilometers took us to Tirali waterfalls. It’s a pilgrimage/religious centre: most people arrive by bus, truck or car, a few staying at a government-run guesthouse about 1 km from the falls. The falls themselves are reached by old-ish concrete steps, past stalls selling food, cigarettes, towels, combs, shampoo and other sundries. There were quite a few people drying themselves after visiting the falls. Many of the women were standing with companions who held the wearers’ saree ‘tails’ to dry them.

The path narrows near the top of the slope to the falls, where metal rails separate women from men. (Children seem to go with either parent, no matter what gender they are.) Everyone can see everyone else but the rails would stop all but the most ardent groper. Men in underpants (mostly boxer shorts) or lunghis and fully-clothed women stood on a railed-off concrete ledge and showered under the falls. Most men and a few of the women used shampoo or soap.

	Tirali falls
	a bridge near the car-park on the way to the falls
	as above

Of course I had to try this but was too, ahem, modest to remove my lunghi in public and hadn’t brought any soap or shampoo. But standing under the water was breath-takingly cold and refreshing. I think a lot of folk were amused by the sight of me enjoying the falls and then walking back down the steps in a soaking lunghi. Mostly this amusement doesn’t bother me but occasionally I think I’d like to stand out a lot less. I changed into trousers behind some bushes near the beginning of the path – thank goodness I’d brought them.

	freshly-washed pilgrims
	pilgrims’ clothes drying on their bus

Roy, my guide, then took me to some nearby temples – this involved a 2km walk and the loss of a bag of puffed rice to a rampantly greedy macaque. At this temples, there is a small hole in the face of a wee cliff. The hole is about 2 feet wide by 1 foot hight. A few folk were chanting prayers outside the hole before slithering through it into a chamber which, according to Roy, could hold 30 people. There was no hint that I should go in: a relief because I really didn’t fancy it.

small temples near road by start of path to falls

	near to where I took the previous photo is a brand-new temple: the cement hasn’t yet been painted
	Women who haven’t had children by the time they want to (apparently usually within a year of marriage) leave these clothes at temples as part of their fertility prayers

	Stream at the start of the path to the main temple
	Some children who’d seen the adults in the last photo asked to have their picture taken of course wanted me to photgraph them too

	these two asked to be reshot
	This not-so-little bugger pinched my food!
	one of the shiva temples – apparently old but very venerated

	some pilgrims outside the chamber
	you can just see the ever-burning(?) lamp
	an altar to shiva (see the yoni and lingam at the back and nandi, shiva’s mount and companion[?] at the front)
	more prayers for fertility

We bussed back to Cumbum and then back to Kumily, occasionally chatting but mostly staring out of the windows at the greenery that coats the escarpment back up into Kerala. I’m going to have a day of private wondering around Kumily tomorrow and then maybe move on to other places.

I spent most of the rest of the day chilling out on my hotel’s balcony and chatting with Roy and his mate Osaka. I get the feeling Roy’s more than just a sociable drinker – maybe it was his downing a quarter-bottle of brandy in no time flat that gave me this feeling.

kids near my hotel climbing mango trees

Later that evening I ate at a posh-looking ‘pure-veg’ restaurant. I’m still boggled that they did not serve any form of tea.

I didn’t sleep at all well at Woodlands on the night of the 21st (after my ‘trek’). I know children can’t be blamed (much) for carrying on all night but the adults should have known better. So, following the advice of my guide (dunno if he gets a cut but I don’t really care) I’ve moved to a ‘homestay’ called Victoria Tourist Home. Homestays are basically bed-and-breakfast setups but this one has big rooms with ensuite facilities and hot water for 160 rupees a night.

POLL
There may be a supervisor job going in this cybercafe. What do people think about me going for it?

MONDAY 22ND APRIL
I’d talked with my ‘trek’ guide about places near here I’d wanted to see and ended up taking a long journey by autoricksaw with his mate Sumod. I was taken around what claimed to be the original spice-garden in this area and learnt a few things about the different spices that are grown here. I hope I can remember some for longer than I’ve remembered Devanagiri characters.

	pretty flowers at Spice Garden
	more pretty flowers at Spice Garden
	even more pretty flowers at Spice Garden
	I loved the detail on this section of bamboo stem.
	Cardomom pods growing on the plant
	unripe ‘tomato’ aubergines

The second stop was the Connemara tea factory: there’s a good description here and here’s wikipedia’s wise words. Photography was very strictly forbidden inside the factory.

tea bushes interspersed with silver oak (used for building and fuelling the drying-ovens)

Finally, we bumped and tortured the ‘auto’ up miles of really rough track to Granbi viewpoint (about 1400 metres). Here we sat and communed with nature for a couple of hours, occasionally chatting with young folk from Chennai (Madras) but mostly, when I could psyche people into shutting up or simply ignore them, listening to birdsong and watching the mist curl through the distant valleys. I was at peace enough to receive the beginnings of what might turn into a poem. I’m doubtful about my poetic skils and so won’t be sharing the actual words…

	view from Granbi
	another view from Granbi. Can you feel the waves of love beaming down on the planet right now?

My memory of this day was tempered by the sight of an old woman walking bare-foot down the road carrying a handful of cow-dung (for fuel) in her bare hand. It’s almost certainly obscene that I had the luxury of an autorickshaw for excursions while she had to travel like this for existence. I should have thought to tell Sumod that we should at least take her the rest of her journey but was too surprised to think of this at the time.

We then found a much better road back down to the main road (NH-220 from Kottayam to Kumily) and rattled our way back to Kumily, stopping at a dhaba in Vandiperiyar for lunch (Sumod had the main offering: rice and fish curry but I eventually got a masala dosa and really enjoyed it.)

Back at Victoria , I slept from about 4 to 9pm and then crawled out in search of food and email. Got the latter easily at the post office and Sumod helped me order vegetable curry and chapattis from a handcart-stall near the bus stand. (He was queuing for customers with his rickshaw right by the stall.)

TUESDAY 23RD APRIL
Today I tried the Periyar park official boat trip. They don’t promise you’ll see anything apart from trees, water and climate and the trip lived up to this, apart from a distant glimpse of what might have been wild pigs.

	view from the tour boat of Periyar lake
	Some of the trees here have the most beautiful flowers.

My original ‘trek’ guide took me swimming in the pool at the base of the local hydro-electric dam. We couldn’t stay for too long – the local workers didn’t mind but an inspector was due to arrive and he might have objected.

	pretty flowers around Kumily. It’s taken me until my 5th decade to begin to appreciate their beauty
	base of a banyan tree
	top part of a banyan tree

I’m a lot less pleased with the remake of King Kong. It’s not a big ape, it’s a huge turkey. Not quite as bad as the Tim Hines version of War of the Worlds (Here’s ggrieg’s review of that gobble-monster) but the only way I could enjoy it was as a comedy and spot-the-homage session. Don’t waste your money even renting this film. I’m glad it only cost me the equivalent of 50 pence.

Tomorrow I’m going on a short trip to nearby parts of Tamil Nadu. This may be quite lovely – temples, waterfalls and other scenic stuff. The day after I might spend just wondering around Kumily, taking photographs so that I have a record of a small town.

See you later spacecats!

EDIT: just checked out an Indian marriage-broker website. They list potential brides’ complexions. Yick.

EDIT: now with pix

AROUND KUMILY

	local political grafitti
	I won’t get treated by these people!

DRACULA LIVES!
So yesterday I booked myself a guided tour of the forest around here in the hope of getting close to wild big animals: there’s elephants, big cats, bears and buffalo here. No sign of them (plenty of elephant tracks around though) but I can report another Bruce-first: I’ve had my blood sucked by a leech.

They’re funny creatures: they stand on leaves in paths, waving their ends around. They look like animated nails on prozac at a trance rave: jerking and waving away in the air. I was wearing long thick socks and long trousers so most of them didn’t get anywhere. My guide helped me brush a lot off and dislodged the rest with tobacco powder.

However one sod was clever – it hid in my trouser leg so when I changed my socks back in Kumily, it got a chance to latch onto my ankle and start sucking. I noticed a damp patch on my sandal strap and saw red juice leaking out. The little sod had gorged so much he was around 5mm thick (they start about 2mm thick) and leaking. My guide pulled him off and put tobacco on the cut to stop the bleeding.

I think we walked around 6 miles through dense forest – grasses taller than my head and beautiful trees with macaques and howler(?) monkeys occasionally letting us know we were trespassing. It’s quite beautiful: I hope the photos do it justice.

	‘tribal’ Ganesha temple in the jungle
	view towards Periyar (looking east)
	view of Kumily (looking north)
	view into Tamil Nadu (looking east)
	rice(?) fields to the east

	flying ants’ nest
	banyan – I’m told it slowly surrounds and kills its host

	dunno but they’re pretty!
	mimosa flowers

The walk has aggravated my left knee (injured when I was training to run a marathon ages ago) and I’m now hobbling like an arthritic wheelchair with triangular wheels.

What is it about me? In addition to having various dodgy and inebriated characters offering to help me find an Indian woman, I was chatted up yesterday in Kottayam bus stand by a bloke. I suppose I should take it as a compliment to my youthful beauty.

Anyway, having told my fancier that he was on a hiding to nothing, I ended up in a brief conversation with a young Indian woman whose father is a bishop currently lecturing in an irish university. She’s studying psychology in Melbourne and is very christian. The contrast between her and the immediately previous conversation had me in stitches.

My bus to Kumily passed through villages sporting decorative arches and tinsel, as if some big celebration was imminent. There were huge numbers of christian churches – I’ve seen more nuns in two months in India than in the whole of the rest of my life. As the road wound up and up into the western Ghats, it also passed a lot of rubber trees: the tapping process now appears to incude protecting the cut with plastic sheeting. I have no idea why this made me think of Tom Lehrer’s MLF Lullaby.

In Kumily, I’m staying in the Tourist Bhavan part of Woodlands Prime Castle: I have a 3-metre by 3-metre cell with a double bed, table and mirror for the amazing cost of 100 rupees a night. When I lifted the cover, an insect scampered under the pillow so I’ve slept on top of the cover, inside my bugbag and under a lunghi because it’s actually chilly up here.

OK, time for breakfast and some orientation…

I wish I could take the credit for that idea but it’s from a comic I read in my misbegotten youth. I think the comic starred Plastic Man and the brainwasher was invented by, then used on, professor Albert Ergberg. If this detail can stick in my head for years, why can’t devanagiri characters stay for a few weeks? Enough of this – normal service WILL be resumed…

So yesterday I bought a replacement battery charger (my nice shiny UK one appears to have fallen victim to India’s frequent power outages) and eventually left Ernakulam, taking the ‘Venad Express’ to Kottayam, halfway between Ernakulam and Kumily.

	folk waiting on the platform ahead of me
	folk waiting on the platform behind of me. All of them would cram themselves on the train as it started moving.

The train departed on time and arrived in Kottayam about 20 minutes late – there was a long stop at a tiny halt about halfway through the journey for no apparent reason. The route passed through fertile land and villages that called to me and past a filthy-looking dairy that didn’t appeal at all. Somewhere (can’t recall now) I saw what appeared to be jackfruit growing on the branches of trees, not the main stem.

a new building we passed

don’t look back in anger

The ordinary cars were of course crowded and standing by the open door was the only way I could breath. Sitting at the open door was even more respiration-friendly until it began to rain.

crowded carriage

Of course, this was an understatement: the heavens opened and liquid hell poured out. The rain didn’t stop until some time after 4am this morning.

view from my balcony

view from my balcony – I like the ‘abstract’ effect

At Kottayam, I toyed with the idea of staying in a railway retiring room but finding tha a night in a hotel would only cost 30 rupees more, the hotel won. I’m glad of this – I got a huge, clean, room with en suite bathroom and shower (cold water only) plus a sachet of shampoo, a small bar of soap and a clean towel for 230 rupees.

The hotel (the ‘Ambassador’ on KK Road) has a bar which appears to be the local pub – brandy and (not much) soda was disappearing down a gaggle of throats at a vast rate. I drank a beer and a soda water and then escaped to watch the rain at the hotel’s front door. Various folk were there, waiting for autorickshaws and other transport to take them and their thoroughly wetted whistles home while keeping them dry.

One of the inebriates, a bank manager with the State Bank of India, asked the usual question and then whispered into my ear that he could help me find a companion. I laughed it off but again I’m disturbed and a bit insulted by this sort of offer. I hope his head is pounding this morning – he reeked of brandy.

Oh well, time to move on to Kumily. Kottayam’s a friendly place dominated by a catholic church but has nothing that makes me want to stay here.

Last night I ate a masala dosa in a branch of ‘Indian Coffee House’, a workers’ co-operative chain that seems to cover central Kerala. The potato mix at the centre of the dosa was red with tomato and was nearer an extremely thick soup in consistency than the ‘bubble-and-squeak’ I’ve encountered so far. It was palatable but I’ve enjoyed the other variety more.

This morning I tried ‘vegetable cutlets’ and ‘aloo masala’: aloo masala (literally spiced/flavoured potato) was the stuff that had been inside last night’s dosa and vegetable cutlets appeared to be balls of a close relative covered in flour and then deep-fried.

So I’ve definitely reached my spud quota (thank you Bill Hicks!).

Meanderings through this regeionof Ernakulam confirm its similarity to Birmingham: all sorts of engineering works, any amount of small shops selling metal tubes in various sections and almost no end of clothing wholesalers and retailers. Time to move on.

Ernakulam notes and reasons to be pleased or cautious just now.

SUNNY
Again, a sunny mood prevails despite being about to spend another in a city. Firstly, with huge thanks to my father for his time and PC, I know that the vast majority of the photos I’ve taken so far are safe and sound in the UK. Yeehah: I can delete them from my camera and restart using a likeable resolution!

Also, when I booked in for tonight, my hotel offered me two unheard-of bona: clean sheets and a clean towel. I didn’t need the sheets and there hadn’t been a towel in the room originally. However, the offer of a towel really pleased me: I would be able to shower this evening and tomorrow morning without needing to pack a wet towel. This also makes the most of my own towel being washed yesterday. A simple thing and probably not worth this many words but it’s been unique in my Indian experience.

Today also served notice that a feared dose of Mughals’ other revenge wasn’t in progress. At the time I wasn’t in the best possible place to receive the notice but no harm has been done.

DELIGHT
I may have been silly however. This evening I bought another bottle of pepsi and downed it rapidly. I was still thirsty and noticed the stall had bottles of ‘Maaza’ (a soft, non-fizzy, mango drink. The stall-holder looked in his freezer and said he didn’t have any cool bottles of Maaza but had ‘Mango treat’, which was very similar. I have no worries about the bottle he produced from his freezer but I allowed him to put ice in it. It’s likely the ice was made from his tapwater and possible that it wasn’t totally safe.

I also talked with the stallholder’s mate, a guy who makes and sells soada water: it’s used by many stalls to make lime-sodas which are refreshing mixes of soda water, cordial and freshly squeezed lime. There’s no guarantee that the glass has been washed in totally safe water* and the lime is occasionally squeezed through manky-looking sieves. It certainly hasn’t done him any harm: he’s got muscles like rocks.
*it will have been washed

I didn’t think that the soda water* I’ve drunk would be unsafe but the stallholder’s mate’s pedal-bike was loaded with crates of bottles of soda-water. Since quite a few of them had originally contained pepsi, mirinda and other soft drinks, there’s a chance that some of the soda-water I’ve drunk wasn’t from original bottles either.
*I drank these neat because I didn’t totally trust the glasses, sieves and cordial.

Oh well, my digestive traumas have been nowhere near as bad as they could have been so I’m not worried. Nor should the above be read as me accusing anyone. I’ll keep on drinking soda water because it’s a refreshing alternative to warm water from my filter-bottle but I will be a bit circumspect about soda-water bottles.

Shampoo in India appears to be sold in strips of 8ml sachets, as are crisps, paan, detergent, juice and other items. Stallkeepers will have a bar above their heads with strips of sachets dangling from them, not unlike a delicatessen dangling strings of continental sausages in front of its clientelle. While the crisps and paan aren’t that much use for personal hygiene (and 8ml of crips hardly satisfies my appetite), I appreciate the shampoo sachets. If one of them was to burst in my rucksac, 8ml might not be a disaster. A full bottle would. I’m not keen on the extra use of plastic and so will cross these sachets off the Indian experiences I intend to repeat. Now where is Ernakulam’s branch of the Body Shop…?