A waiter at the Indian Coffee House (he didn't really like his picture being taken).
We both liked Cochin, it made a nice change to be back in a bigger city after 10 days on the beach and a few days in the backwaters. Fort Cochin is on a large island within Cochin but weirdly enough there is no Fort there now, even so we quite liked the atmosphere of the place and spent a few hours wandering around. The mix of massive Catholic churches, with inspirational slogans on the outside walls and Chinese fishing nets is the kind of mad mix that you seem to get here in India.
The President of India was visiting Cochin that day so the number of khaki shirts outnumbered the natives: there were at least twenty policemen on every 20m stretch of road. It was the first time that we saw Indians walking on the pavements, as far as we could work out the major thing the President did that day from the paper "The Hindu" is water some tree saplings to replace the trees that the town council had removed in order for his helicopter to land the last time he was in town: he was very angry that they did that quote unquote... very eco friendly is India!!!
So after completing the ferry journey from the ashram we arrived in Alleppy (which is a gateway to the Keralan backwaters) for the second day of a temple festival. We dubbed it the "poundland festival" as one road was lit up with fairy lights and silver bunting and was FULL of stalls selling every crappy, tacky, plastic, random, cheap item you could EVER want. Seriously though, the Hayes family would go mental at all the tat and Kieran had to restrain me when I saw the paper star lanterns with a nativity scene!!!!
After a lovely sleep in a quiet, comfy bed (really 2 cms of foam is luxury for us now) we took a traditional Keralan houseboat for a 22 hour trip along some of the main lakes and rivers. The landscape is much more open and less jungly than expected, with waterways separating vast reclaimed paddyfields (the backwaters are below sea level). We blew 4 days' budget on our own private boat with driver, chef, and were waited on hand and foot for a day and a night - it was FAB!!!! A perfect sunset concluded a great trip, and it was only slightly marred by being woken up at 5am (I mean, it was still dark!) by the nearby Hindu Temple chanting the 10,000 names of the eternal mother over a loud-speaker system.
Hopped on a bus when we got back, to Cochin where we hope to do a smaller canoe-based trip to the backwaters, then visit a tea plantation before heading to the mountains for Christmas.
My yoga teacher, Cathy, said I must try to visit Amma (Malayalan for "mother") if I go to India. Well, not only were we in the right area, but we happened to be getting a ferry right past it so how could we not stop off for a night and get our hug?
We travelled en masse from Varkala and spent a lazy 4 hours on the public ferry to the Amma ashram. Unlike the other ashram we visited, the Amma one was lively, huge (three 16-story tower blocks), and had a lovely positive atmosphere. Yes there was chanting but you didn't have to participate, and in fact you could take or leave any of it and no-one really cared (as long as you were happy and not doing anything illegal!).
You can read more about Amma at her website but she does an amazing amount of charity work for the poor and needy and is a positive inspiration to many people. Her thing is that she'll hug anyone, regardless of race, colour, religion, illness, caste, and spreads the word of love (rather than of God, which makes a nice change). We also got to sit behind her and watch other people getting their hugs which was actually more moving as so many people were obviously devoted to her and it was a very special moment for them.
We were a bit cynical so El went back the next day (after having been woken up at 5.30am by the bloody chanting) for another, solo, hug and she asked Amma who hugged her? She found it quite funny and gave me an extra hug and rattled off an answer along the lines of God is in everyone and so by hugging you I am hugged by God which was a fair enough answer really, but most importantly I felt I had made some kind of interaction with her which felt more meaningful than a faceless hug.
We're not touched by the whole thing but it was certainly an inspiration to watch a living spiritual leader actually getting real things done for people. Good on you Amma!
We made the decision a few days ago not to stay here on the beach until Xmas and to do a bit more exploring of Kerala. Our rough plan now is to travel north by train tomorrow to the start of the "backwaters": a 900 km network of waterways, where people live on narrow strips of reclaimed land only a few metres wide. It's one of the things that Kieran really wanted to do in India, which included taking a House Boat into the backwaters for a night or two. Not sure if we are going to do that now, as the costs are high in this busy season, but we had a top tip from a friend who suggested taking the local ferry with an overnight stop over in a famous ashram, where the "hugging mother Amma" hangs out, check her out here, getting the hug and a meal before completing the next leg of the ferry ride the following day. Therefore seeing the backwater for a tenth of the price and getting a hug from a big breasted wise women into the bargain. From there we plan to go to the main town Kochin even though someone told us it was 'smelly' and from there head into the hills at Ooty for Xmas in front of a log fire (colder up there and therefore a bit more homely) where there are treks and horse riding.
We have been working on our tans , yoga and the beach way of life (late to rise, beach, late to bed). We did managed to get our arses into gear yesterday and take part in a cooking class. We both really got a kick out of it and threatened the cook that we would soon be opening up a Kerala curry house in England as we seemed to be "born to cook curries". I did have some small doubts that the praise was part of the cooking fee. We cooked 6 Curries and two breads. The most fun was the bread called Parata bread which involved slapping the dough into the table until it was stretched and then curling it like a Mr Whippy ice cream.
It took us from 9am - 1pm to make all the meals which were then served up to the public in a Thali (rice and 5-6 curries). While we joined them of course we soaked up all the praise from the customers as they ate our creations, some even asked if we were cooking tomorrow :-)
We wrote the ingredients all down for each meal, so hopefully when we get back we will be able to serve up some proper wicked south Indian dishes.
We are going to have some tandoori barracuda tonight as it maybe the last fish we have for a while and maybe a cocktail in happy hour, Passage to India anyone! ! I am starting to miss a pint of ale and a glass of wine, I might look out for a wine shop in the city ;-). We are going to miss Varkala but we feel it is time to move on. BTW mum this little holiday is part coming out of your Xmas money (the rest at Xmas) so thank you from both of us we have really enjoyed it and needed the rest xxx
We've been chilling in Varkala now for about 5 days and although El's cold and cough is still lingering, we're feeling much more relaxed. We've started going to a yoga class once a day (MORE than enough!) and have met up with a few ashram-escapees and have set up a poker group. Our yoga teacher is a bit nutty (all the best ones are) and we do a breathing exercise called "dog breath" where you are on all fours panting like a dog. Last night we played poker for pebbles; tonight we play for rupees!
Varkala is quite touristy - little more than a beach, a cliff and a row of restaurants, hotels and shops - but it has a lovely chilled vibe. The beach is perfect - yellow sand, clear blue water, and strange orange cliffs overlooking. The sea is quite rough but great for swimming and body boarding if you're mindful of the currents (and mum don't worry there are life guards!).
We're staying in a cute little bamboo hut (well, it's wood with bamboo fascias!) with our own veranda and very friendly staff and we think we're going to stay put now until Christmas. Every day the accommodation prices rise so it isn't in our interest to move on. In any case we're just getting into the swing of getting up at 8.30am, yoga class, late breakfast, chill out for a couple of hours in the shade, swim and chill on the beach for a couple of hours, watch terrific sunsets at around 6pm, find somewhere nice to eat and hang out with our new friends (Teedah & Adj, Louisa & James, James and Claudio the horny Italian - he is GAGGING for some female company!!!) and playing poker and shithead and generally doing BUGGER ALL.
Today was the first Monday in a LONG TIME that we looked forward to getting out of bed! The only thing we haven't done yet is find Nancy's (El's cousin's) random pub mate, Damon's, friend who apparently lives here...the search continues though. We broke our veggie-only rule last night and had butter fish and calamari. So far no problems and the fish was delish! Now, off to have another papaya lassi I think.
[p.s. we've now uploaded all our photos to flickr so we're up-to-date there if anyone is interested.]
OmmMMMMMMmm OommmMMMMMmmmmm sindimandori a, sindi-dala, mandala, etc, etc. Well we made it to the Ashram just in time for dinner. It was our first time eating with our fingers and we made a mental note to wash the Deet off our hands before supper next time. The Ashram was...very authentic. We knew there was going to be chanting and meditation in the morning and evening. The meditation was good, the chanting was...authentic. Got a very numb/sore bum sitting on hard floors for hours at a time, and the chanting, although has different words, has the same tune and you start to dream the bloody tune! It all had very religious connotations and lots of prostrating to Gods and idols.
And the chanting didn't stop there: there was chanting at the start and end of every yoga session, meal, tea time, lecture. It was very overwhelming and a lot more hardcore than expected. Click here for some chanting...
We respect the yogis and their way of doing things but Kieran after the first day decided to bunk everything except dinner and yoga and read Lord of the Rings instead. I tried to follow the rules and get up at 5.30am for meditation but after 2-3 days kind of got to the end of my cosmic tether and was sleep-deprived, food-deprived, grumpy, bitten by mosquitos, bed bugs and nits, and going down with a nasty cough.
I did have some sage advice from a guru called Veera and we decided to make our escape. We obtained our parole cards, I mean, exit passes (you're not allowed to set foot outside the compound to stay pure) and dashed to the nearest big town to eat garlic, chilli and have a very LARGE BEER.
I guess we're just not that cosmic after all but at least we've given it a go, and met a few lovely people who had a bit more staying power than us!
We stayed in a lovely hotel back in Triv with TV (we watched Spiderman to make ourselves impure again) and consulted an Ayurvedic doctor about our cough/cold (tastes rank so must be good for us). Next day got on train headed for beach..... Kieran attempting escape from the ashram after just one day!
Flew into Triv on the 30th from Bangalore, lovely flight with Jet air. We could see the Western Ghats from the plane, that stretch all the way from Mysore to Triv, can't wait to get up to some hill stations. We got a free (strange curry thing) meal on the flight and Eleanor made us nick the on board plastic hand fans (never seen someone so happy with a freebie). Ordered a taxi from the prepaid taxis stand, which is a god send as you do not feel up to the hassle of working out the taxis cost after a flight. So once that was done we got directed into our first Ambassador taxi: it was brilliant - a big white car that feels like a Rolls Royce. The driver was quite old and bald and drove the car like he was a Raj, tooting at anything that moved, and when it didn't him and his mate up front stuck their hands out the window and made rude signs at the drivers! Fantastic - I liked Kerala instantly.
After getting into town we decided to catch the state bus up to the Neyyar Dam where the yoga ashram was. We were told it was at stand 11 every half hour, easy we thought... of course stand 11 was 20 feet across and 30 buses seemed to come every 5 minutes with no sign of which place they were going to. Luckily a paper boy with the widest smile you have ever seen, took pity on us (for some baksheesh of course) and told us "no no not this one" every time a bus came up, we had our suspicions that he was in cahoots with the tuktuk drivers as he kept talking to them, but in the end he saw us right and onto the right bus we got. Well when I say got on I mean squeezed on, we were standing all the way stuck in like sardines with no view, as we were above the windows... welcome to India's public buses. I could not believe that at every stop another couple of people would get on and the bus conductor kept on shouting for every one to make room.
Anyway we made it to the ashram and got into our room when from the main buildings came this sound "OMMMMMMMMM" ... "OMMMMMMMM" and chanting continued for an hour. "OMG," I thought, "what have I got myself into?". We went to the yoga shop and I bought some trousers and a OMMM t-shirt, if you can't beat them!! I will let El finish off the story of the Ashram as it was her thing.
