Bombay Part Deux

Went to Bombay with Niamh (pronounced "Neeve" for those who don't read Irish Gaelic), who's visiting from Dublin. Kind of fell into Bombay at the last minute, since it was the cheapest, easiest place to go, and it was awesome.

On Saturday we did everything I did the first weekend, except in about 5 hours (not being sick sure helps). I was an expert at this point, and was even able to negotiate at Colaba with my new favorite technique "No Firangi Prices, I want Indian Prices"- which worked pretty well. I also got to see the enigmatic giant shoe at hanging gardens that appears on most Bombay post cards. Niamh and I got along really well and had tons of stuff to talk about since she also majored in Music. She also had very interesting expat perspectives, because she grew up as an expat in Saudi Arabia.

One of Shyam's friends from the Google Bombay organized an evening out for us, which was definitely better than falling asleep at 9 watching 'National Treasure' like I did last time. Shyam's friend, Kiran, and his friend, Amit, met us at free cocktail hour at the Grand Central Sheraton, and took us to the Sportsman club (no sports required). We lounged and ate Indian Chinese food until the entire place closed at 11 (we got the clue when they turned the lights off...).

Afterwards we drove around and gave our leftovers to homeless people who sleep on the beach during low tide. They have to move all of their stuff every day during high tide, and then move it back every night to sleep among the largest rats I've ever seen - almost as big as the 3 ft squirrels.

Around midnight we went to the Mumbai office and Kiran showed us around. They had a wiffle cricket set so we played a while and then headed off to Enigma, one of the poshest clubs in Bombay, to witness the renowned Bombay nightlife.

We met one of Kiran's friends, Deep, and had a surprisingly great time. Niamh and I were really more interested in going just to see what it was like, and then make it an early night, but the bollywood music made it really fun to dance (even while sober!). We danced until the club closed at 3am, singing along to Dhoom 2 and Salaam e Ishq.

On the way home from the club they convinced me to sing, and we drove around the empty streets of Bombay, past the sidewalks of homeless people sleeping and taxi drivers sleeping on their hoods, singing. I sang Delilah's aria, Niamh sang us an Irish folk song, and Kiran sang us a Telugu love song, and at 4am on the silent streets of Bombay, 4 strangers from 3 continents who had known each other for less than 24 hours shared one of those unreal moments that make up the most vivid images of life. At that moment English was superseded by music as the universal language.

Bombay Part Deux

Kiran, Deep, Me, and Niamh at Enigma

Enigma - 2am

Niamh and Kiran on the way to Enigma

Kiran and I pose like pro cricketers

Midnight cricket in the Mumbai office

Me and Niamh in our fiat taxi at the Google Mumbai office

At the infamous giant shoe at Hanging Gardens

A woman enjoys a converstion while holding her goods on her head near Mahalakshmi

Niamh and I display our flowers from Mahalakshmi temple

Kids try to sell us the Google Story while we wait at a stop light in the taxi

Niamh with a family who asked us to take their picture to show them

Bombay laundry - not sure how they're going to do laundry when monsoons come next week

Bandhed Together

Luckily this weekend turned out to be uneventful. Saturday was a citywide Bandh (basically the city was on curfew and everything was closed) to prevent the Friday riots from spreading. A lot of expats ended up cancelling travel plans, just like yours truly, and we were all stuck in HiTec city, which is basically an expat alcove. Ismail would only let us go to the Novotel, the business hotel behind the office, so we found our way to a leisurely lunch sipping coffee cocktails and eating thai green chicken curry.

After rolling out of Novotel, I went with Shannon and Neil to Shaparamam, the rural marketplace where villagers come to sell their crafts. Normally on a weekend it would have been packed, but it was a complete ghost town, and we were the only visitors. We walked the empty dirt paths past the sleepy salespeople who only made passing attempts to get our business. Shannon, Neil and I all ended up buying drawings from a woman who offered to paint anything we bring to her - I think I'm going to have some interesting painted objects by the time I get home ;)

Afterwards I headed home where I sat with my flat-mates, Tiffany and Mohit, trying to figure out what to do. Now, 3 expats in India with nothing to watch and nowhere to go, can come up with some very inventive things to keep them busy. First we decided we'd practice putting on saris, which lead to the idea that it would be even funnier if we videotaped our efforts tu put on YouTube (which didn't happen, so don't look...), which lead to the even better idea that we should choreograph a bollywood dance scene and videotape it. Although very entertaining, the videos of the incident will definitely be locked away in the vault for no one to see;)

Exhausted from our awesome dance moves, we sat down to a 3.5 hour hindi movie about divorce, since it was the only dvd in the house we haven't watched yet. Just so you know, no matter how bored you are, a 3.5 hour hindi movie about divorce still isn't entertaining, even if it has a dance scene with gogo dancers dressed as Marilyn Monroe doing Indian dance moves.

On Sunday, still not able to go anywhere, I went to brunch with Neil and Joel at the Sheraton. Afterwards I went to the posh Jayabheri pool with Shannon and Neil, only to discover that apparently that day, they had decided to institute a policy where girls with hair (as opposed to bald girls...) were forced to wear 'swim caps' (non-waterproof shower caps, the only real purpose of which was to make people look stupid). Once again, my pet peeve about India reared its ugly head- i.e. the random and unreasonable enforcement of stupid (sometimes made up) rules 20% of the time with anarchal chaos the other 80% of the time, with no telling which is going to be the case. Interestingly, that 20% happens to occur at a suspiciously higher frequency when you're a) in a hurry b) least expecting it and are really not in the mood for it or c) at an airport.

Undeterred, we went to the pool anyway (sans shower cap), but were forced inside within 20 minutes when a thunderstorm blew in, even though it had been clear, sunny, and hot all day. Once inside we decided we'd entertain ourselves by playing indoor ultimate badminton, but were once again shafted by the activity gods with the shuttlecocks mysteriously missing. Shannon was dealt the final blow when she went into her kitchen to find a plate in the sink entirely engulfed in ants, at a level of thickness only possible in the tropics.

Giving up on any ideas of activity, we escaped the infestation chez Neil with beers at 5pm followed by dominoes pizza and possibly the worst movie ever made- "Click" starring Adam Sandler (definitely worse than the bollywood movie about divorce). We watched this movie because it was the only movie there, and we thought we'd make it more fun by predicting exactly how Adam Sandler would acquire the magical remote control that drives the plot of the movie. Spoiler warning - as if anyone should ever want to watch this film- Neil guessed that he would get the remote control after moving into a new house, Shannon guessed that he would get the remote control as a gift, and I guessed that he would get the remote control from a mysterious person at a name-brand product-placed electronics chain.

I can only wish that I wasn't correct, but in fact, Adam Sandler drives past a Best Buy and another chain and goes into a Bed Bath and Beyond and gets the remote control from the mysterious Christopher Walken from the 'Beyond' section (he even has a business card that says "Beyond.") The entire plot of the movie revolves around Bed Bath and Beyond, and the amount of screentime the logo gets must be worth more than a superbowl commercial! I can only hope that Adam Sandler made a commission for that disgusting commercialistic ploy that was big enough to make up for his loss of self-respect - this movie made Billy Madison seem like an oscar contender. The only saving grace of the movie were the horrible english subtitles, which were phoenetically typed out by someone who clearly didn't speak english (which was even stranger, since the movie was already in English.)

Overall, despite the numerous failed attempts at entertaining ourselves, I'm grateful to say that the city has calmed down and things seem to be going back to normal. Since the worst things I can report from this weekend are watching a bad Adam Sandler movie and fighting of a pile of ants, I think I can count myself pretty damn lucky. In bocca al lupo.

Images of Charminar

Don't worry - I didn't take these.

Updates

Am sitting at the guest house, reading updates as the news unfolds. The tensions are rising throughout India, and I have cancelled my flight to Delhi. After the blast, the police reportedly shot into the crowd and killed and injured some people, so the tensions in the old city are even worse than they were right after the blast. Most of the ex-pats are staying in the guest house area, and we have been advised not to travel around the city. All of my office mates were advised to leave work as soon as possible to get home.

Situations like this remind anyone who has forgotten, including yours truly, that the peace in India is held together by a very thin thread which is ready to give out at any moment. Hopefully the tensions will die down throughout the next 24 hours.

Breaking News in Hyderabad

At 1:30 today a bomb went off at the Mecca Masjid in Charminar during Friday prayers. Police have closed the old city until the situation can be contained. Traffic is being diverted around the old city. 5 people are confirmed dead and 15-20 people were injured. None of this information has apparently reached the media yet, since I can't find any news reports online. It is unreal to be somewhere where this is a reality. I have been to Charminar on a Friday afternoon. We are all safe on the other side of the city, working as usual. To keep things in perspective, more people were killed a month ago when a billboard fell on an ice cream shop during a storm, although I don't think that thought is particularly comforting....

In the meantime, I have canceled my plans to go to Amritsar this weekend. Today riots and looting broke out due to a political situation there, and students are apparently wandering the streets with swords. It is a bad mix of modern and medieval. Top priority is to stay safe - don't worry, I won't be doing anything stupid.

This week has been pretty uneventful, although I've been very social after work - which may be considered an event in my lazy air-conditioned life.

On Tuesday night we had our team dinner at a restaurant called 'Laguna' whose gimmick was that they had sand and a pool of water throughout the restaurant with fish swimming in it. Unfortunately, many people found out the hard way that there was water, and even our manager accidentally stepped right into the pond on her way in. The dinner had a 'fairy tale' theme, which involved a lot of creativity, since most people here, including myself, don't have random costumes sitting around read to use.

I went as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, and I came to work in the morning, hoping to get some props. "Ok, I need a stuffed dog, a basket, and red sparkly shoes!" - Within 5 minutes I had all three items from people's desks, just within the optimization team. Rupa was hilarious, because she told me that I must be mad to expect anyone to have red sparkly shoes in their desk, until she remembered that she actually had red sparkly shoes in her desk! I joked that only in India could I ask if someone had red sparkly shoes at the office, and they'd actually have them! Other costumes included 'superman' and 'batman' with the symbols printed out and taped to people's shirts, Harry Potter, Hansel and Gretel, Ali Baba, Lois Lane, a leprechaun, and several characters from Archie comics (who I didn't recognize).

Then yesterday I went out for TGIW with some ex-pats. We went to an ‘Ex-Pat’ bar called Frangi Panni which roughly translates to ‘Gringo Water.’ There were 3 German girls (Anja and her two visiting friends), an Italian named Roberto, Grainne, Anup, and several Hyderabad Googlers. It was ‘ladies night’ so all the girls got free drinks, and they played ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ and ‘Thriller’ and we ate something called the ‘premium fries basket’ which included French fries, curly fries, hash browns, potato skins, and more – enough to clog the arteries for a century. There were a bunch of balding middle aged white men there, who I assume must work for Microsoft ;) The ex-pat experience is a strange phenomenon.

Expertly eating rice and curry with my right hand at Rupa's optimizer dinner party - sitting with Parul & Hayley (left) and Allison (right) from the Sydney office

Dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz with todo in my basket at the 'Fairy Tale' theme Team Soul party, with Soum, Supriya, and Urva

Weekend at the Zoo and Golconda

Saturday at the Zoo with Rohit

After finishing every other conceivable activity in Hyderabad, to keep myself busy on Saturday I went to the zoo. Rohit, the former MV ambassador, also skeptical about the quality of the Hyderabad zoo, graciously accompanied me with my favorite driver, Said, to the other end of town to one of the ‘biggest zoos in Asia.’ When they say ‘biggest’ they literally mean biggest, not most animals.

To really test my resolve, I chose 11am, one of the hottest points in the day, for the expedition. When we arrived, I found out that we were allowed to drive into the zoo – an interesting development. I was so intrigued by the idea of driving around the zoo in a private car that I paid the 200 rupees to bring the car in (at $5, it was 20 times the entrance fee for walking around the zoo) and it was well worth it. We wouldn’t have made it past the opening monkeys without a car.

The Hyderabad zoo, described by Lonely Planet as ‘less depressing than other Asian zoos’ wasn’t really as bad as I expected. Rohit and I were both intrigued by how little caging separated the animals from the spectators. First off, the monkeys weren’t in cages, they were in areas surrounded by ‘moats,’ which I suppose were meant to keep the monkeys in. Now, I’m not an expert, but the last time I read a children’s book, monkeys don’t tend to walk around the jungle, they climb around the trees instead. And although there was a moat around the monkey areas, there were tall trees hanging overhead, and there were definitely missing monkeys. I wonder how often the people in the tent slums next to the zoo are visited by exotic animals….

The most exciting part of the zoo were the large predatory animals that weren’t in cages. There was a white tiger just walking around, only separated from the audience by a 4 foot deep moat that he was swimming around in (admittedly, the 4 foot deep moat was about 8 feet below where we were standing, but it was also only about 10 feet wide – easily jump-able by a motivated tiger). No cage, no wall, just the moat. He was only 10 feet from us, and if we had been in the jungle, I would have given myself up for dead, but he just stood there, watching us, pacing, and eventually climbing down into the moat to cool off.

The bears were even more scary, because they were visibly aggrivated. There was one bear that was pacing and growling as people stood even closer, not more than 8 feet across the moat. Once again, I’m not an expert, but it doesn’t seem like a long shot that a 6 foot tall angry bear could jump across an 8 foot wide moat if he was really motivated. So, beware if purchasing any discount housing in the zoo area of Hyderabad ;)

We also went on a ‘lion safari’ which definitely needs to be in quotes. I wasn’t expecting anything, especially with the sign next to where they sell the tickets, warning patrons in English, Hindi, and Telugu that ‘Wildlife Sightings Are Not Guaranteed in the Safari.’ We waited for half an hour for a bus with barred windows to come and take us into the “safari.” We had to pass through two levels of gates, a la Jurassic Park, just to get into the safari, which I found ironic considering we had just recently been standing 10 feet away from a tiger with no cage. The lion safari ended up on the shit list above Snow World, since Snow World at least attempted to have snow, whereas, I am skeptical about the presence of lions in the lion safari. We did have to stop the bus to wait for a tiger to get out of the road, and when we passed, I could see him watching us out the back of the bus, as he stood in the middle of the road. Not exactly a real safari, but not bad for staying in Hyderabad.

Sunday – Golconda Fort (Finally) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golconda_Fort

After many failed attempts, I finally made my way to Golconda Fort on Sunday with Shyam. We went later in the day to avoid the heat (it was only about 103 when we went around 4:30) and the lighting was very nice. The fort is pretty much the only major landmark in Hyderabad other than Charminar, and is much more impressive. It is built on the top of a hill overlooking the city, yet you can’t see it from almost anywhere except right at its base – probably a strategic position. It is very old, and like old strategic places, there were hundreds of years of rulers adding their touches to its architecture. There are mosques and a Hindu temple, and the insides were filled with bats. It was crowded with Sunday visitors – huge families who come to everywhere pleasant in India to spend their afternoons.

Golconda was cool, and we were there in time for one of the daily Muslim calls to prayer, which gave it a lot of atmosphere. Mosques all around the base of the fort gave their calls, so they all clashed as if they were competing for worshippers. Like every place near the old city, lots of families wanted me to pose with them for pictures. If only I had the fame and fortune to go with the stares and giggles that I receive ;)

Golconda Fort

Me and Shyam at Golconda

Sunset shadows

Old man staring at me

Saturday

A camel train walking through the old city

A family day at the zoo

who me?

One of the many random families that asked me to pose in their pictures this weekend

The tiger wihtout a cage - this picture did not use a zoom

The angry bear - ready to jump

Who needs a zoo to see animals in hyderabad?

Adventures in Kerala - Part 2

Kerala Part 2

Saturday night

After dinner we went back to our rooms to sit on our decks and enjoy not needing an air-conditioner. The air was fresh, and Indian music wafted up from the valley below making the entire scene atmospheric. We went to sleep early to the lull of the music from below, which turned into a roar at about 5am.

Chris and I awoke pre-dawn on Sunday morning as the music from the valley, which had played ALL night got a second wind, possibly to wake up everyone in the valley. Apparently there was a festival in one of the towns and they wanted everyone to know about it. Even though the town was miles away, it was in the natural amphitheater of the valley, so the sound was magnified right up to my window.

I got up at 6 having given up on sleeping and joyously put on my long sleeved Google cricket shirt – joyous because it was the first time outside of the over air-conditioned office that I’ve needed long sleeves since I got to India. I wandered around and found a big boulder overlooking the valley where I could watch the light from the sun trying to peek over the mountains behind me. I watched as the entire valley of tea plantations slowly lit up to the tune of the Indian music blasting from the valley.

After a while I met up with Chris, who was also up early, and we went around looking for as many scenic photo angles as possible. After a while, wondering if Karen was up, I realized that with the old-fashioned keys we were using, that I had accidentally locked her in our room when I left and took the key. I returned to our room to find her graciously reading on the balcony, luckily only having been awake for half an hour of the 1.5 hours I had locked her in the room.

We had breakfast on the patio overlooking the tea fields, and had…tea. They gave us freshly squeezed juice from a fruit they called a ‘tree tomato’ which tasted vaguely like guava without the pith, and had tiny red seeds that looked like a pomegranate. After relaxing on the porch with our tea, a guide took us on a hike through the cardamom plantation. Cardamom grows in tall stalks, and the only part of the plant that is used for spice is the seeds of the flowers that grow at the bottom. It needs to grow in the shade, so it was shaded by massive banyan trees.

We were lucky enough to see a ROUS (Rodent of Unusual Size for ‘Princess Bride’ fans) - the elusive 3 foot squirrel. You know you’re in an exotic place when the squirrels are 3 feet long, although it turned out that at least a foot of it was its tail. He was just sitting on a high branch in a banyan tree, thinking about how he’s the king of the squirrels, and we stood for minutes taking pictures from every angle.

At the end of the hike we ended up at another tea plantation and we walked around in it, taking pictures that made it look like we were swimming in tea. Tea plantations are very beautiful because tea grows on shrubs/trees which are manicured in a way that gives them a stronger sense of depth when you are looking at them. They also have depth because the mature leaves are very dark green but the new leaves that they use to make tea are a bright spring green.

On our way back to the plantation we stopped to take pictures of a banana tree growing in a driveway when a honeymooning couple stopped and asked to take their picture with us. It is apparently very popular in throughout India to get your picture taken with random white people.

After our return we had a leisurely lunch with more tea, where we overheard that the very British group of people who we’d noticed the night before were actually BBC fluff team, there to shoot a travel segment. Now how to I get THAT job? They had apparently just come from shooting another segment on an Indian safari – I think I’m in the wrong industry ;)

We also met a group of retired college professors and their wives from Bombay who recognized my Stanford hat and mentioned that their kids who work at Silicon Valley tech companies live in Sunnyvale and Los Altos, where they visit every year. Now what are the chances that in the rural Western Ghats of South India we would meet a group of people who spend half their year, every year, less than a mile from my apartment in Mt. View? Now that is the power of globalization.

After lunch we decided to do more grueling activity by playing scrabble on the deck overlooking our amazing view of the valley (music still playing…) It turned out that ‘Scrabble’ was actually a copyright infringed game called ‘Crossword – The World’s Favorite Word Game’ which was Scrabble all the way down to the points assigned to each letter. I kept falling asleep, but managed to break through 2 rounds with no vowels with the word Quiz on a triple letter score – a very exciting moment ;)

After sitting around and dozing, when we finally ran out of letters, we decided to try to get to Munnar to get tea and spices. We were detoured by another offer of tea, this time in the ‘Keralan hut.’ Afterwards, we decided to get the true Indian experience by taking an auto-rickshaw to Munnar.

After waiting a while in the village for one to come by, we didn’t have much bargaining power, and got in the only rickshaw, which had two drivers. At the bottom of the very steep, windy road, just as we were entering civilization, the driver got out and they switched and we realized that our driver was clearly 12 years old. We got caught in a tropical rainstorm on the way into Munnar and when the auto-rickshaw stopped to put the tarp over the sides to keep the water out, it broke and wouldn’t start again. As the guys beat at the engine, we decided we had gone as far as we needed to go in that rickshaw and got out.

We wandered around the grody town looking for a tea and spice shop that sold them in at least semi-legitimate looking packaging (didn’t want to try brining in an un-marked bag of dried leaves through customs…). We finally found the official shop for the plantation bordering our plantation (for some reason you can’t buy it directly from the plantation) and we filled our bags with exotic tea and spices, which ended up costing less that $10. Afterwards, Chris wanted to grab some beer, and ended up asking a rent-a-cop security guard who was dressed in communist looking attire where the liquor store was. After a harrowing walk across some busy streets we finally got what we were looking for and had another auto-rickshaw take us home.

Afterwards, with enough adventure done for one day, we had dinner and relaxed and waited for the music to stop.

Weekend in Kerala - Part 1

In order to get everything out quickly I have written in a stream of consciousness style - thus forgive the fragments and bad grammar.

Friday

Fly with Chris from Hyderabad to Chennai on Indigo. Flight only half an hour late.

Flight from Chennai to Kochi on Indian Airlines and departs from International airport. Flight apparently continuing to Kuwait via Cochin and Goa – even customs officials amused that we are only going to Kochi on a flight labeled to Kuwait. Confused bureaucrats require us to declare items such as currency, electronics, and foreign-made watches – fact that we’re only flying an hour within India escapes them. Glad we didn’t sleep through the Kochi landing and end up in Kuwait.

Land in Cochin/Kochi – don’t fall asleep and end up in Kuwait.

Palm trees everywhere

Lush tropical scenery, winding tropical waterways, cows grazing in green fields by the airport

Meet Karen at the airport and take a pre-paid taxi to the hotel. Taxi turns out to be an old ambassador – my first real taxi in India

Drive an hour through the same horrible traffic as everywhere else in India. Garbage everywhere – wonder how they can’t just pay poor people to collect it.

Le Meridien hotel on the water. Hotel has big 3-tiered pool. Welcomes us with coconut juice. Nicest hotel in Cochin, bathroom still has moldy ceiling.

After checking in, take an auto-rickshaw to Fort Cochin. Bargain with 4 rickshaw drivers before giving up and paying the inflated rate of 150 rupees ($3.50) for 14 km (8 Miles), instead of the 100 rupees the concierge said should be the maximum.

Drive through old streets with fruit stands selling entire branches of bananas. Walk along the waterfront during sunset where fishermen are pulling in their last Chinese fishing nets of the day. Fishermen use rocks and 6 men to pull the nets in, even though there are only tiny fish. Kittens surround the box of fish, pawing at the fish as the wriggle.

Walk along the beach around the old fort, watching Indians on vacation and people play fully clothed in the water of the Arabian Sea.

Roll up my pants and feel the water, warm but not gross like the Bay of Bengal.

Walk around the fort until dark, come upon a field preparing for a soccer match across from the white-washed St. Francis church, founded by the Portuguese in the 17^th century.

Intrigued by the name, stop in a shop called the ‘Treasure Trove’ - apparently a popular name around Kochi (Treasure Trove Coconuts, Treasure Trove Tatas, Treasure Trove Dried Fish, etc.). Find crap, not treasure, although ‘Crap Trove’ doesn’t sound as appealing. We did gain a memory to treasure at the crap trove, as we watched a cat squeeze itself into a shoe on the door step.

Wandered around Cochin looking for Lonely Planet suggested restaurant labeled as ‘in the Brunton Boatyard.’ Looked for boatyard. Cursed Lonely Planet for not revealing that the ‘Brunton Boatyard’ actually has nothing to do with boats or yards, but is, in fact, a hotel. Enjoy good meal inspired by Kochi’s history, with a colorful history of the town printed in the menu. Enjoy euphemistic language recounting the ‘Portuguese visitors who stopped in for some tea and spices.’

After dinner attempted to find auto-rickshaw in tropical rainstorm. Stood in boatyard driveway beating off mosquitoes and realizing how the human race first figured out how to dance as we swung our bodies around trying to keep the mosquitoes away. Waited for hotel taxi after Chris ran down the street and was ousted from his potential rickshaw by men loading piles of bananas into the last available rickshaw.

Took long shower and went to sleep early.

Saturday

I awoke bright and early to go swimming in the three tier pool. After taking a short swim I lay by the pool where it was already getting hot at 8 am, and had to go in when the mosquitoes converged. We had breakfast at the hotel and then headed back to Fort Cochin, in another auto-rickshaw, to see what we missed on Friday.

First we went to the ‘Dutch Palace’ which is actually Portuguese, then remodeled by the Dutch, and then lived in by the local Rajas, and is more of a house than a palace. It had an awesome collection of costumes from the Rajas and ornate sedans that people were carried through the jungle in, and I envisioned aunt may being hauled through the jungle by 6 guys in one of the sedans and wasn’t jealous. There were amazing murals on all the walls with scenes from the Ramayana, and a very naughty scene with Shiva and some milkmaids which was tactfully not described accurately in the information guide.

Afterwards we looked in some shops and went to Jew Town, which looks very much like a European city. Jew Town was built by Jewish immigrants to India who moved to Cochin when it was a thriving Portuguese port city in the 1600s, and there are still 7 Jewish families which encompass 20 people (all old) whose families have lived in India since before the Taj Mahal was started. We went into one shop and one of the Jewish ladies was there, and she looked just like an old woman in America. Completely white, wearing socks with sandals and a mumu, but speaking fluently in Malayalam, the local language, to the shop-girl. The Jewish people in Cochin speak a mix on English, Hebrew, and Malayalam, and I can only hope that a linguist has gone down to Cochin to study how their Hebrew compares with modern Hebrew, since I suspect it contains words that were used 400 years ago that aren’t used anywhere else today. I think we were really lucky to actually see one of the few people of a 400 year old culture that is about to die in India.

We went to the synagogue which was closed for Sunday and then wandered back to get an auto-rickshaw back to the Meridian where our driver sent by Ismail was going to meet us. We ate lunch at the hotel and then headed out on the 4.5 hour drive to Munnar, but weren’t confident in the quality of our trip when the driver asked ‘so, airport?’

It turned out that his boss had failed to mention that he would be driving us to Munnar and that he would be staying there for 2 days, so we had to stop by his house for him to pick up an over night bag, and he had to call about 5 people to tell him directions.

The drive to Munnar was amazing, first through the lower tropical crop-land full of coconut, pineapple, and banana plantations, then up through spice plantations, and finally into the jungly mountains. These mountains must have been where they filmed Indiana Jones, because no other place in India is as tropical.

We stopped at a ‘rest stop’ a spot on the side of the road by some waterfalls where men were climbing and jumping around and vendors were selling coconuts cut by machetes and banana chips, and I reeeeeallly had to go to the bathroom so I braved what I expected to be the worst toilet of my life.

I was pleasantly surprised when I got to the toilet, and although it was not the cleanest in my life, it had a seat and didn’t stink, which was more than I could ask for in most American rest stops, and I was able to relax for the rest of the trip. As we continued into the hills it got dark and we could see lightening in the distance. The roads were in poor condition, and there were crazy buses playing chicken on one lane roads. All of the taxis in these places are jeeps, and for good reason – we’re not even in monsoon season and the roads are full of potholes and mudslides. We were in a tiny car, an Indian version of a Ford focus or the like, and the driver kept stalling, since he didn’t seem to have a ton of experience driving a stick on a hill.

When we finally arrived in Munnar, it became clear that our driver didn’t know where our hotel was, even when we explicitly asked him if he did. He tried to drop us off at a random hotel which didn’t look fantastic, and definitely didn’t have a plantation attached to it since it was in the grubby town of Munnar, so we ended up having to call the hotel and have them explain to him in Malayalam how to get there. Cell phones are the greatest invention in the world.

I was never happier to be anywhere than when we arrived at our ‘hotel’ (which was really a bed and breakfast) and they greeted me by my full name. When we emerged from the car the temperature was about 72 degrees and not humid, and I couldn’t have appreciated it more. They took our bags to our room, took us to dinner in the homey dining room, and we relaxed in anticipation of the view we would have when we woke up.

Kochi

Fishermen let out the chinese fishing nets for their last attempt of the day

Kittens hungrily try to sneak a taste of the day's catch - better than meow mix!

Boats lie on the beach at Fort Cochin, put away after a day's work on the water

A family enjoys their day at the beach with balloons for the kids

A woman watches the sunset over the Arabian Sea

A boy watches the sunset over the Arabian Sea

The Kochin backwaters from the edge of our Hotel's grounds - I didn't ask if there could be crocodiles in the water ;)

Many things to buy! Kites, trinkets, and coconuts for your shopping pleasure...

Jew Town - Fort Cochin

Karen stands in front of a closed building - The Jewish orthodox residents don't work on Saturdays.

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A strange contrast with unintended connotations, a sign points to the synagogue, but the windows of the building next to it feature swastikas - a Hindu symbol of peace before Hitler gave it a new meaning. When the windows were built, the symbol didn't have its modern connotation.

The Synagogue clock tower was built in 1760, but the Synagogue was built in the 1600s - the architecture could be in Southern Europe, specifically Portugal where the Jewish people immigrated from. This is the oldest Synagogue in India, and the 7 Jewish families who still remain in Jew Town have lived in India longer than many Indian families have. The Synagogue pre-dates the Taj Mahal.

The gate to the Synagogue courtyard

A shop owned by one of the Jewish families in Kochin. When we went in, the owner, an old Jewish woman, was talking to the salesgirl in Malyalam, the local language. The Jewish people here speak English, Hebrew, and Malyalam

The Road to Munnar

The communist Kerala flag flies in the street - Kerala is one of two communist states in India

The true Indian jungle - better than Kipling's jungle, this lush area could easily swallow an entire civilization - Possibly the set of Indiana Jones...

Two men in traditional Kerala dress cool down in a mountain waterfall

Beautiful Munnar

Sunrise in the Western Ghats

'meditating' as the sun htis the top of far off mountains before sunrise

Stray banana trees mark the path to the cardamom plantation - only 1000 ft below tropical banana plantations flourish in the heat and humidity, but at this altitude the air is crisp and the tea can grow

Tea with tea growing in the background

I'm standing in a cardamom forest, these huge plants are used for the tiny seeds of the flowers that grow at their roots - in the US a few seeds can cost $10, in India you can get a 1 kilo bag for 1000 rupees - about $25

Our cardamom walk ends at the tea planatations

An auto-rickshaw makes its way through the tea plantations

A Tamil family who works in the tea fields

Drinking tea where they make tea...

The fog creeps over the hills

Early morning fog creeps over the surrounding mountains before sunrise

A single man picks grass for a roof on a steep hill covered in tea