my fake husband

I’ve mentioned before that pretty much everyone here gets married. It is safe to assume that every Indian person I meet over the age of 30 is married. As such I’m a bit of an anomaly. In my 30s, not married and don’t have any plans to do so. Now I know perfectly well that there are plenty of people back in the US that judge me for being single, but no one would ever make a comment to me. Here I will have complete strangers ask me if I’m married. Once I say that I’m living here in Delhi the conversation usually goes like this:
Stranger: are you here with your family?
Me: no, I’m here on my own working
S: are you married?
Me: no
S: why not? You should be married.
This is where I reply one of two ways depending on my mood. Either I simply say that I’m just not and leave it at that, or I will explain to them that in America people don’t have to get married, it is considered perfectly acceptable for a woman to be single and living on her own. This usually causes the person to just stare blankly at me, or they just reply that I really should get a husband.
I’ve had this same conversation with people in my office, a person sitting next to me on a plane, my dry cleaner, and several random shop keepers.
Since this seems to be the favorite topic of conversation I’m contemplating coming up with a fake husband so that I just say yes and leave it at that. Indians don’t wear wedding rings so it isn’t like anyone would question that. I’m thinking my fake husband will work “at the embassy”, a generic ex-pat job that doesn’t require any further explanation…definitely something very top secret.
Of course I doubt I would ever have the courage to actually lie about this, but if anyone has any suggestions for my fake husband’s name, let me know and maybe I’ll try it out if I’m in the right mood.

Interesting editing

As I've mentioned before, movies on TV here are edited (even on HBO). They are edited for language, and violence and anything beyond a hug is edited out.
Some movies make almost no sense with all the editing, but for the most part it is fine. Sometimes if I've seen a movie before I'll sense that something is missing but am not quite sure what.
When it comes to violence usually they will show someone shooting a gun, and they will show people dead after being shot, but not the actual moment when someone is shot.
So, the movie Three Kings was on the other day (this was the Gulf War movie with George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg, I think it came out about 8 or 9 years ago). It is a good movie so I decided to watch it and I had one of those "I think they skipped something" moments. About 5 minutes later I realize what it was. There is a scene fairly early in the movie when a cow gets blown up. I forget how, I think the cow accidentally walks on a mine.
That entire scene was cut out. I was surprised at first, I thought they would have maybe shown the bit leading up to it and then the reaction to the explosion, but then I remembered that cows are sacred here (well, technically they are sacred only to Hindus, but that is around 80% of the population). So that scene, even though it the cow blowing up was accidental, is literally sacrilegious so was completely removed. It makes sense, I mean people think I'm a heathen for eating a hamburger, I cannot imagine how they would react to that.
Of course it made one bit in the next scene really confusing, but better one confusing line than offending an entire nation.
Oh, and apparently Slumdog Millionaire has been edited in the movie theatres here. There has been some controversy over it, apparently people say that it is an inaccurate portrayal of life in India and that is just the western view of slum life so they have removed some of the parts. I want to see it but will wait 'til I'm somewhere in the west so I can see the whole thing.

shallow moments

I must confess that every once in a while here I have moments would best be described as shallow. I don't mean to be shallow but sometimes I will see something that reminds me of home, or something that is western and I just feel the need to buy it even if it is really expensive.
It can be tiring sometimes to be somewhere that is so completely different and be so obviously a foreigner that I just need little escapes. There are a few restaurants in the city which are somewhat overrun with ex-Pats, an Italian place I love, a great Mexican place, etc., etc. I don't go to them that often and I never feel badly when I do...I mean the food is really good. But I have had a few moments after which I was a tad bit ashamed.
Moment #1: was at a grocery store which has a fair amount of western food. I go there maybe once every 6 weeks or so and stock up on stuff like Peanut Butter. The stock rotates a bit since a lot of it is imported and last time I was there they had Pop Tarts. I was so surprised to see them that I just had to buy a box. Of course I haven't had a pop tart in years but I just had to have them, they were very yummy, but even if I see them again I doubt I would buy them because they were around $7 - yikes! Now if it was toaster strudels I probably would have paid $20 because they are just sooooo good.
Moment #2: was at a local market picking up my Newsweek and I saw a copy of the US version of People Magazine. I never buy People back home, but I just had to have it. $8. Yikes again! What I discovered while reading People is that I am 100% out of the loop when it comes to pop culture. There were TV shows and movies and stars that I have never heard of. To give you an idea, of the 5 best movie nominees for the Oscars, I had only heard of one...I'm sure you can guess which one.
So those are my shallow moments. Not to bad really considering I've been here for a while already. I'm sure that more will come but I might just keep those to myself depending on just how shallow they are.

Idol in India

The heat is back! Well, not completely, but I would definitely say that "winter" is over. The weather is actually quite lovely, sun shining, a little bit of a breeze, not foggy, it is a good time to be in Delhi. My guess is that I have about 2 more months before the bad heat sets in. I'm mentally preparing.
And now, on to one of the most surprising, yet somehow not, things I've encountered here. See, it isn't the things that are completely different from back home that surprise me here, it the stuff that is the same. Like that I can get Oreo cookies here. So I wasn't surprised that American Idol is on TV here, but it is which season of American Idol that is on that totally floored me.
As I have mentioned before, my TV options are a tad bit limited, I get random shows, half of which I've never heard of, and all of which are last season's...or older...episodes. But American Idol is this season. Not only is it this season, but it actually aires here the day after it aires in the US! I've never watched it before but when it pre-empted my favorite show here I decided to tune in and then saw a blog on Boston.com about it and realized that it was the same episode.
I feel like this is one of the signs of the end of the world or something. I mean kids here don't always have access to an education, or food for that matter...but American Idol they get.
Now that I've watched it I can say that it is pretty entertaining, although Paula Abdul is really crazy, and Ryan is really annoying, and why does everyone boo Simon? he just speaks the truth.
Oh, there is an Indian Idol also.

a shout out for health care in India

I know I'm working way to hard when I completely forget about blogging like I did yesterday. Oh dear. Well yesterday was quite a day but it ended with a super yummy dinner at an Italian restaurant so now I'm back on track and ready to blog...
So, the other night I was watching Boston Legal on TV. It was a repeat and I'd seen it before but the quality of TV I get is decreasing daily (I read lots) and I like the show. Anyway...on this episode a woman was suing her health insurance company because her husband died during an operation. The reason she was suing was because they had sent him to India to have the operation since it was so much cheaper. So, I'm watching this episode and the arguments the lawyers are making basically come down to the fact that health care in India must be sub-par because it is India.
Seeing as my time in India started with a broken foot and I've also had to get a new prescription for my glasses and have also had toe issues that required a minor procedure (long story) I have had more than my fair share of experience with health care in India and I wanted to say that I have been completely happy with it. I feel like I've said this before but some things are worth saying more than once.
I will admit that I go to the best hospital in India (according to some award they received), but even so, the care has been exceptional. The doctors really listen to me, take the time to diagnose me, and I've recovered very well from all of my various and sundry maladies.
I'm not saying that you should fly all the way here just to have surgery, that does seem a tab bit silly to me, but if you happen to be here and get sick, you can feel confident that you will be well taken care of.
I wonder if they won the trial on the show? I was somewhat distracted by the argument so I stopped paying attention. They probably did, it is a show where they good guys always win, but if I was on the jury they wouldn't have won or it would have been a mistrial.

shopping for glasses

I just had to get a new prescription for my glasses which meant that I also got new frames. Now seeing as I am still in denial about the fact that I have to wear glasses because I really don't like the way I look in them, buying frames is always difficult for me. The way I buy frames is to not look at the price or the brand and just try them on; I don't want to be swayed into buying something just because it is a bit cheaper because I have to wear them every day, you know.
What was interesting this time was that the guy at the store pulled out only the name brand frames for me to try; Burberry, Prada, Versace., etc., etc. I mentioned this to a few people I work with and they said "of course" - basically because I'm a foreigner I would, of course, buy the high end stuff.
In the end I was torn between two and went for ones which are, in fact, Prada. Ironically they were waaaaay less expensive than my previous frames which I bought in Canada (and lenses are crazy cheap here too) but I did feel like a bit of a rich westerner because I made a comment under my breath about frames being cheap here and I think they heard it. Oopsy.
Oh well, I think it made them happy so even though I feel like I should be offended that they only showed me the most expensive frames, at the end of the day I'm just happy that I have new glasses and that my eyeballs don't hurt any more. And now I can say that I own something Prada. Very likely the first and last thing I will ever buy that is Prada...unless I'm still in India in a few years and need new glasses again.

Passport Envy

This morning I had the fun (read: boring) task of going to the US Embassy to meet one of our groups and stay with them while they went through the visa interview process. I have done this twice before and don't particularly like going simply because it basically means sitting/standing around for a few hours while 40 people go through the visa application process. But, sometimes it is necessary for me to go for customer service reasons and today was one of those days.
It is so odd going to the Embassy, at least in the visa application section, because everyone looks at me with what can only be described as envy. They want what I have, namely a US passport.
I had no idea until I came here just how easy we have it as Americans when it comes to traveling. Indians, for example, need a visa to travel everywhere - except Hong Kong I think. The visa applications go from 4 pages to 10 pages depending on the destinations, and they need to provide financial documentation going back years and years, and then they have to come to the Embassy to be interviewed by an officer at which point in time they could very likely be rejected. Of course the reason why they have to go through this mess is that there is pretty big problem with Indians immigrating illegally. We have caught quite a few people in the lie ourselves, one girl brought a fake father; actually an uncle who had gotten a fake drivers license to pretend to be her father because her father is living illegally in the US.
As you see people either get their visas...or not...the look on their faces is the equivalent of either Christmas morning-type happiness...or devastation. Once someone has one visa then they will likely get approved for any other visa they apply for and now their chances of studying abroad or working abroad just went through the roof.
Our entire group was approved and as we were waiting for everyone to finish the students asked if they could see my passport. I showed them and they were fascinated by it, they looked at every page and every stamp and held it like it was some type of treasure. It was slightly bizarre and I felt a little guilty at how easy so many aspects of my life are just because of the luck of where I was born.
Of course I do now need to begin the renewal process for my visa to keep working here but that process is more of an annoyance than a stress.

the end of the road...

I have lots of thoughts going on in my head today but, before I go on about this and that, I should probably finish up with my journey through India with my parents. So on to the final day...
Anyone that has traveled a lot, or even a little for that matter, knows that no matter how must planning goes into a trip nothing ever goes exactly to plan. So, I was not that surprised when our return flight to Delhi had a time change (I was surprised though that the airline called me and sent me a text message to let me know, nice customer service!). I had chosen a flight departing at around 4ish, getting us in at around 7ish. As luck would have it the change ended up working out even better. The airport closed their runway for a few hours for some reason or other (it was a small airport - one runway) so we didn't depart until 7ish which meant we didn't have to leave the hotel 'til after lunch. This gave us a very relaxed morning to say farewell to Munnar and the tea plants. And what better way to say farewell to tea than with a visit to the Tea Museum.
You can't really visit a tea plantation, it isn't like a winery that is set up for tourism, but this tea museum gave us a glimpse into the life of the tea workers and into how tea is made. After watching a short film we saw the machines where the leaves are dried and rolled, etc., etc., and my favorite bit was this big contraption which sorted the tea after it had gone through the process into the different types based on leaf size. Kind of complicated and I'm not sure how well I can explain but it was very interesting and now when I drink a cup of tea I wonder...where these leaves were picked? And, of course, at the end of the museum, a cup of tea which was flavored with cardamom and almost tasted like hot chocolate. yummmmm
Well, after lunch it was back to Cochin, a relatively uneventful ride. Then a surprisingly yummy dinner at the airport (and reasonable too) then back up to Delhi.
And thus ended my parents two weeks in India. Well, not exactly, we did have the next day in Delhi but that was mostly shopping and packing, not exactly blog-worthy.
39 days until my next visitor comes. Hooray!

High on a hill with a lonely goat...

While in Munnar I kept finding myself singing songs from "The Sound of Music". Why did India remind me of Austria? Well, because there were lots of mountains around and as we discovered one morning, a few (not lonely) goats...

See, as beautiful as the tea plantations were, you couldn't just sit and stare at them all day, so we went out and about in Munnar. On the itinerary that had been put together for us there we had a "soft trek" in Eravikulam National Park. I wondered what exactly did they mean by a soft trek? After deciding that it must mean a short walk though soft terrain I discovered that I was totally wrong, but a soft trek was in fact a good description of what we did. After getting the tickets to the national park we hopped in a shuttle bus which took us up up up even further into the mountains on very twisty-turney (read: scary) road for a few kilometers. We were then let out to explore the park which was our soft trek. So we slowly walked up, stopping every two seconds to take the amazing views and also to say hi to the Nilgiri Tahr, a type of very tame mountain goat that walked alongside us, and so, as you can see, I was, in fact, high on a hill with a bunch of goats...and so I started singing the song (quietly, to myself, I'm not one to burst out in song in front of strangers). It was a lovely little walk, we were probably there for a little over an hour (long enough for me to get a sunburn even though I put sunscreen on twice – oops! I guess the sun is closer at 9,000 ft high). It was very beautiful, if you are ever in Munnar definitely go there.
In the afternoon we explored the nature via boat, taking a ½ hour motor boat ride around one of the reservoirs, then on to "echo point" which had an amazing echo but was a bit too full of people wanting to take my picture for my sanity so we moved on to another reservoir with a high dam. It was interesting learning about the water and how people manage to use the rains from the monsoon throughout the year. Basically the water fills up during the monsoon season and by the end of the dry season these reservoirs (which are pretty huge) are practically empty because the water has been used throughout the year to sustain life and the crops.

All very interesting...and quite picturesque too.

For your viewing pleasure today, two goats looking at me while I took their picture. I didn't zoom at all, they were maybe 10 feet away from me. Cool, huh.

Happy in the hills

You know how there are some places in the world you can just go and do nothing and be happy? I have a few of those places, like a café in Paris, or on the coast in Maine…and now I can add to that Munnar in Kerala. Very specifically sitting on the hammock in the garden of the T&U hotel in Munnar, but pretty much anywhere in or around would do.
One of the things I really wanted to see in Kerala was a tea plantation – my desire to see a tea plantation was simply because my mom is a big tea drinker so I felt that she should see a tea plantation while in India – plus I had been told we just had to go to a hill station and that is where the tea is so there we went. And boy did we see some tea. There were miles and miles and miles of plantations all around. The plants all grow to the same height and are very very green so from afar it almost looks like the greenest grass you have ever seen just going on forever. Some of the plants do look to be a darker green than others, probably just the way the sun hits them; and some of them had an almost reddish hint on the top of them. It is difficult to explain how something so simple could be so beautiful but it was. We saw women working some of the plantations, walking through picking off the leaves by hand, working quickly but carefully. The really crazy bit is that it is all relatively new, tea was only introduced into the area in the early 1900’s, the town grew around it and now it is THE business and the livelihood.
And now for a funny story. At our hotel I asked for green tea after dinner and they didn’t have any! Ha! We are surrounded by more tea plants than I ever knew existed and they didn’t have green tea.
I could talk about tea for ages but I have a sneaking suspicion that after a while it could get a bit boring, so I’m going to add two of my favorite photos of the tea plants and let them speak for themselves. As always I recommend clicking on the photos to get a better picture, especially the second one.

First, an up close shot, you can really see how they are all the same size and shape (the big trees are used for shade on some of the plantations)...

And far away, they just go on for miles...

Next post will be about why I kept humming songs from the Sound of Music...

creaky bamboo, bad roads and lots and lots of tea

It rained today. Shocking. I remember the last time it rained in Delhi to the day...September 20th. The rain today lasted about 5 minutes. I had been told it would rain in the "winter" and I guess that was it. I wonder if it will rain again before monsoon season.

Anyway...the 4th day in Kerala was one of those days that, to me at least, felt like a few separate days all melted into one, but in a good way. The day started bright and early with mom and I taking a cruise on the lake in the Periyar wildlife sanctuary. Apparently there are tons of tigers in the sanctuary but we didn't see any, oh well. It was still very pretty even without the tigers (and since I do, on occasion, see an elephant in the street, I'm tough to impress now when it comes to animals). The lake fills up during the monsoon and then goes down throughout the year, there are markers showing how high it can get, and you can see already how much it has gone down over the season. Apparently in May and June the water can get really really low.

My favorite part of it actually was that you could see the tops of dead trees in the lake, they must have grown years and years ago either during a dry period or maybe before the lake was there, and now they stick up here and there, perfectly picturesque with a few bird nests on the tops of them.

After enjoying the lake we took a stroll down the main road past some shops and a forest of bamboo. I don't think I've ever seen bamboo trees this big, they moved in the wind and made this creaking sound which kind of freaked me out since it sounded like they were going to crack on my head, but they didn't and it was very very pretty. The picture at the bottom is of some of the bamboo, to me it looked like an archway in a church so I call this the bamboo cathedral.

In the afternoon we hopped back on the road to go further north to Munnar and I discovered how 120 kilometers-ish (74 miles-ish) can take almost 4 hours to drive. Really really really bad roads. Actually, there was only one section that was really really really bad, the rest just had lots of curves or, as the signs said, "series of bends ahead", so you had to drive slowly so as not to hit a person, or a car, or a cow (who quite frequently were sitting right on the edge of the road). The rrreally bad part was about 20 km (12 miles) that took us about 50 minutes to do...basically non-stop Huge pot-holes. The good news is that along the way we saw lots of work being done so hopefully in a year or so the drive will be about an hour faster.

The even better news was that even though the drive was slow (and we did stop a few times for photos so that contributed to the 4 hour total) it was beautiful, I was wide awake the whole time taking it all in! The first slow bit was almost jungle-like with trees and plants in every direction, it made me think of what a rain forest must look like. Then we transitioned into the tea plantations which are just gorgeous. I'm not going to talk about them now, I'll leave that 'til my next posting, but lets just say that I never knew that tea could be so beautiful.

So, until tomorrow, enjoy the bamboo:

mountains and spices and trucks

After relaxing in the backwaters it was up, up, up into the mountains. We had a 4 hour-ish ride to Thekkady which is inland. The first part of our ride took us through the backwaters which was a very beautiful ride and also gave us an additional view into daily lives in such rural areas. We saw lots of people dressed up waiting for the bus to go to Sunday mass; we saw women doing laundry in the rivers, which includes them smacking the clothing on big rocks, which is, I think, to get the dirt out, it seems rough on the clothes, but seems to work; we saw more of the Chinese fishing nets, much smaller than the ones we saw at Cochin; and just generally people going about their business.
After a brief relatively uninteresting bit of driving we started the climb up the mountains. That was interesting both for the view and for the driving. See the way that people drive in India is basically to look forward, not behind...ever; if you are passing someone it is your job to honk to let them know you are coming because they won't look before changing lanes. When traveling on small roads and you can't see ahead of you the rule seems to be that you honk to let oncoming traffic know that you are passing, if you hear a honk back, don't pass, you don't hear a honk, you can pass.
At first it is confusing but once you understand it you can see how it kind of works.
Well, after going over the mountains we arrived at our hotel, named the "Treetop" hotel because it was up in the trees. It was a bit cooler since we were in the mountains and the weather must be nice year round because the reception area was completely open - not sure what happens during the monsoon season, I guess they are closed. Our "rooms" were individual little cottages, and there was even a hammock that I could sit on (although getting out of it was a bit of an adventure). After having lunch and getting settled we headed off to visit a spice garden. During our ride we noticed lots of farmland and different plants (including rubber trees, which I thought were super cool), this area was spice central so a visit to a spice garden was in order. It was very interesting, we saw 4 different types of coffee plants, some plants used for homeopathic remedies, some plants used for cooking, including a really popular one called cardamom. I had noticed at lunch that one of the dishes had this sort of sweet, but kind of cinnamon taste to it, turns out that is cardamom; it grows quite a lot in kerala and is used in lots of their dishes. It was yummy. During the tour it was very tricky to understand the girl leading us because of her accent, but I managed to 'translate'; and she was very impressed when my parents knew some of the plants.
For your viewing pleasure today a truck; well, the cab of a truck. A lot of trucks, and even cars for that matter, in India have decorations on them. Usually it is the owners that decorate them to make them their own, sometimes you can see their names in their somewhere. These ones in Kerala were the most decorated I've seen. Pretty cool huh. Oh, and since most of them don't have AC they are built without doors. Not sure how safe that is, but it is practical.

Indian English

Another break from traveling today for some comments on the language that is Indian English. I sometimes wonder how English is taught here, if the things that people say that are just completely wrong to me in terms of American/British English are actually taught that way here or not.
Every once in a while someone says something that I really want to tell them is wrong but figure that it makes sense to them so I shouldn't worry about it, and sometimes what is said just cracks me up.
A few examples. The concept of "since" doesn't translate well in Hindi so while I would say "I arrived in Delhi in July", an Indian would say "I arrived in Delhi since July". Same thing is apparently true for "until". I found the following sticker on something I bought "Offer Valid Till Stock's Last". And that is exactly how it is written. Don't even get me started on punctuation over here.
And here's one for you. Was at the airport looking at the flight status board and saw a flight with the status listed as "clubbed". I didn't believe my eyes so I waited for it to come back and yes, "clubbed". I was baffled, what exactly could happen to a flight to make it "clubbed". A few days later I was at the Reebok store and they had a big sale going on and there was a notice that the sale could not be "clubbed with any other offers" and that is how I discovered that clubbed = combined. So I guess that flight wasn't full and they moved everyone to a different flight.
Now the funny ones are when they the right word but the wrong way, like my Hindi teacher saying our Hindi might be "rusted" from taking a long break rather than "rusty".
And, there is always the V and W situation. Based on where people grew up in India they can usually pronounce only one of the two letters, only on occasion can they pronounce both. So I get words like "variable" pronounced "wariable". And one guy I work with says "now" like "nav". It took me quite a while to decipher that one.
Recently I have been introduced to a whole different aspect of the language issue. There are two movie channels that I get and both have started subtitling the movies with English subtitles (and yes, the movies are in English). I noticed at first some funny things like sometimes they would say swear words but not write them, or write the pg version of the word, or edit out a word they think is bad but isn't, or let stuff through that is a bad word but they don't realize it is bad. I would sometime see the totally wrong word and I finally figured out why. From what I can tell the subtitles are written by people that watch the movie and then type out what they hear. The problem is that they don't always hear the right thing and they type what they think it correct and this makes for some interesting sayings and makes me wonder what people think that are reading it.
My current favorite is from "Office Space". The actual line is "don't drop the soap" (to someone thinking he's about to go to prison). The subtitles read "don't drop the soul". Yes, soap = soul.
Of course right now my TV is broken so of the 4 channels I watch I can only get one right now and it is not a movie channel...but that is another story.
Have a good weekend everyone!

enjoy the boredom

The Kerala backwaters are really what Kerala are known for. Everyone that told me to go to Kerala specified the backwaters. Most people stay on a houseboat on the backwaters; we opted for a "floating cottage" and it was wonderful. After a short drive from Cochin we climbed into a speed boat for a minute and arrived at Pristine Island Resort. It was a small island with 10 floating cottages (each with 2 rooms), a grassy area to sit, walk, relax; a restaurant, etc. It was basic but had all you needed. We got settled in and sat down to just relax and take it all in.
Aside: I changed the picture on my home page (on the right) to a new flower, this new one was taken at Pristine Island.
According to the information they gave you at the island, you should give in and "enjoy the boredom" (or something like that). And so we did. There isn't much to do on in the backwaters other than enjoy the scenery around you, so we were happy to have our little island to walk around on rather than being stuck in a house boat.
It was interesting watching life going on around us; all day long we saw fishermen coming and checking their nets; they had bouyies (which unfortunately for scenic purposes were empty water bottles) marking their nets and they came around quite a few times to check them. We saw the local public transportation; a small boat which would run people (and their bicycles, and groceries, etc.,) across the water, even a few school kids being shuttled home in the afternoon. It was really interesting to see people living in a very very rural environment with very few worldly possessions and how they get along. They all looked to be very healthy and happy.
At sunset we enjoyed a cruise around the area; it was especially nice because it was only us on the boat (there were only about 10 other guests there, bad for the economy, but nice for us). We saw tons of fish jumping in and out of the water, they were really small...and above them birds were circling around ready to grab one for their dinner. There were so many palm trees, interestingly the bottom of the palm trees looked almost red or orange in color, so that as the sun was setting it was like they were on fire...and there were more coconuts on them than I have ever seen on a palm tree. Coconuts are used for lots of things in Kerala; the milk for drinking, the oil for cooking, and I think the shells for something else, but I'm not sure what.
And, of course, after the cruise a lovely dinner with, what else, fish!
It was absolutely wonderful and relaxing and one day felt like a week...but in a good way.
For your viewing enjoyment today...a photo of the palm trees at sunset,
and...a photo of one of dad's watercolors done while we were "enjoying the boredom"

and now for something completely different...

After about a week of exploring the Golden Triangle (Delhi, Agra & Jaipur) we hopped on a plane down to Kerala. If you look at a map of India, Kerala is the long skinny province on the south western part of the country. Everyone had told me that we had to go to Kerala but I couldn't really get an answer as to why; but since everyone seemed to think that it was the place to go...off we went.

When we landed in Kochi (or Cochin) the very first thing I noticed was the heat; it was around 90 degrees (32C) up from 75 in Delhi (24) so that was a bit of a surprise. While driving to our hotel to check in there were other clear differences. First of all, people drive way crazier there than they do up north...and that is saying something. Next, it seemed somehow more traditional but at the same time more modern than the north. More traditional in how people dress; almost all of the women wore saris and almost all of the men wore these long skirt-type outfits, which they could then make into shorter skirts (see photo at the bottom for an idea of what I'm talking about). How it was more modern is hard to explain, it was more of a feeling. The other big difference was in the language; their main language is Malayalam and it is nothing like Hindi, and the accent when they spoke English was different and difficult even for me to understand and I've been hearing Indian accents for quite a while now.

Well, after checking into our hotel we headed into "Old Cochin". Cochin itself is a pretty big town, but like most "old" towns around the world, the old part of it is small with super tiny streets. As it was Friday most of the "sights" were closed - the one museum and the synagogue - but we still enjoyed walking around the shopping area with brightly colored houses, and then checking out the Chinese fishing nets. These are huge fishing nets built right on the shore that use a pulley system for fishing. I had assumed that that hadn't been used in years and were just left up for show, but as it turns out they are very much in use, and the fish market right near the nets is quite active. It was fun watching the men on the nets do their work and then watching people come up and buy the fish from the markets a few feet away. There were places where you could pick out the fish you wanted and they would cook it for you.

The whole area was full of people, locals and foreigners alike, checking out the activities and buying fish. There were even a few cats, I saw one munching on a small fish, the cat looked as happy as could be.

Another interesting aspect of Kerala is that they have a very high Catholic population, the highest in India; St. Thomas (the Apostle, not Aquinas) is believed to have come to Kerala and to have spread the religion. There were lots of churches around, we stepped into one church for a few minutes; it was a very pretty church and filling up for mass.

After another look at the fishing nets while the sun was setting it was back to the hotel for a dinner of, what else, fish! I am fairly certain that I had fish at every dinner while we were in Kerala. I don't eat fish in Delhi because we are pretty far inland and I don't trust that the fish will be kept well refrigerated en route; but in Kerala it was fresh and yummy! The restaurant at the hotel actually didn't even open until 8 p.m., our thought was that they probably waited for the fresh catch to come in.

Today's photo is of some fishermen working the nets:

Let's go fly a kite

One of my favorite things about traveling are the unexpected surprises, especially in the form of a local festival or celebration that you happen to stumble upon. Like, a few years back, in 2005 (I can't believe it has been that long) I was in Dubrovnik the night their summer festival started, there were torches all up and down the old town and then fireworks and it was so fun!
I had a similar experience in Jaipur. We were there the nights of Jan 13 & 14th and the 14th was the kite festival. My first thought was that it wouldn't be all that exciting, just a bunch of kites, little did I know...
So, after a well planned morning and early afternoon of sightseeing I was very bummed out because almost all of the stores in the main market in Jaipur were closed because of the festival. I was bummed because the market itself is part of the sightseeing in Jaipur. So we hopped in an auto rickshaw and sped back to the hotel to check out the kites from the rooftop. Well there were literally hundreds of kites being flown. They were almost all the same size, just a simple square with a really really long string - some of them looked like they were a mile up in the air. There were kids and adults climbing on almost every roof flying a kite. It was so much fun to watch so many people having fun with something as simple as a kite, especially nice since so many people here have so little, but these simple kites were something that everyone could afford.
And at sunset, fireworks all over the place. The fireworks were not organized by the city, rather individuals (or groups I suppose) so they were going off here and there in the city for quite a while. Some of them were really big and I was very happy that our hotel had such a good rooftop because we were able to see a lot.
It was just one of those wonderful moments in traveling when what you expect to happen doesn't, but instead you get something even better.
The next morning the hotel staff were busy picking kites out of trees and finding all of the string all over the place.
And here is a picture of some of the kite flyers and their kites. Click on it to get the full screen, I think there are 20 kites in this shot alone.

It's a bird, it's a plane...it's a beer???

A Kingfisher is a type of bird. It is also the name of an airline here in India, and the name of a beer. The joke is that since you can't advertise for alcohol in India that the Kingfisher company just bought an airline instead...although I did see ads for the beer in the south.

So what does this have to do with anything? Well the day after visiting the Taj, etc., we went back to nature on a visit to the Keoladeo Ghana (KG) National Park about an hour outside of Agra (on the road to Jaipur, our next stop). KG is a bird sanctuary and according to my guide books the "best" in India. I wasn't sure what to expect but I figured that a bit of nature would be welcome after a few days of monuments.

Well, it was a wonderful experience. We hired a guide (as had been recommended) and two bicycle rickshaws and spent over 3 hours in the park. About 10 minutes into the park a stork flew overhead and we were so excited, our guide said that he would show us tons of storks up close, and he was right!

Once we got into the watery part of the park, a sort of swampish land, there were hundreds of birds, including a few kingfishers. The first one we saw was super small, but they are a bright bright blue and our guide with eyes like a hawk (no pun intended) was able to spot him from afar; then suddenly another one was super close.

My favorite birds were the "snake birds" (I forget their real names); they are called that because their necks look like snakes and when they go in the water and are swimming their bodies are under water and it looks exactly like a snake...kind of creepy, but definitely cool.

There was also this really cool red algae on the water that gave an almost surreal element to the park.

The birds weren't the only wildlife, there was a lizard that looked like a log, it blended in so well that it took me a few minutes to see it even though it was right in front of me; an antelope that I got a super fuzzy picture of that looks like one of those pretend big foot pictures; and, of course, cows, including one "mad cow". At one point when we stopped to explore by foot we heard this noise and saw a cow running to our area and some men running after it. I don't understand what was happening but they grabbed him and after much struggling took him away. It looked like he wanted to charge at us (or anyone for that matter) but it is also possible that he was in a special bird area and they were trying to get him to move. It was weird and slightly scary, I'm so used to having cows just walking down the street that it is very odd to see one being aggressive.

Anyway, even with a mad cow and even if you aren't a bird person, if you happen to be in Agra and have the time, I highly recommend going to this national park, it is amazing seeing all the birds and it is also nice to see so much nature being preserved after the craziness of the cities. And if you are a bird person, definitely come, you will go crazy!

And after all that birdwatching you can enjoy a Kingfisher beer with your dinner and think about the kingfisher birdies you saw.

Aside: whenever I have Indian food back home if I order an Indian beer they usually have Taj Mahal beer; I have never seen that here; here Kingfisher is The Beer yet for some reason I have never seen it at an Indian restaurant back home. I wonder why?

Picture time! Sadly the picture of the Kingfisher isn't very clear so here we have one stork (looking away) with some ducks with some of the super cool red algae.
Enjoy!