I came to Fort Cochin on the 11th of this month, shortly after spending a couple of week
s wandering around northern Karnataka with Emil, Emma, and Henrik... my Swedish mafia. Here is a photo of them. Aren't they cute? They know words like "catalyst" and "resolution" ... although they don't seem to be entirely sure where to add the stress sometimes. The word "diary" can become quite funny when the emphasis is placed on the last syllable, as I came to find out. Anyway, we went to Hampi and Gokarna together, and although I nearly wiped out Henrik's 16 GB memory card on accident, the time passed without incident and I found myself enjoying what could have been the most pleasurable 10 days of my time in India.
So, I came to Kochi (Cochin) by myself and met this crazy one. The manager at our hostel tried to get me to abandon her to his wily design, but I hung fast. Lucky for me, that resulted in mango cornflakes, picnics, and hours of bike riding. It also resulted in me getting thrown out of my hostel early, as the hostel manager (I'm assuming) got angry that there was never a minute alone with her to be had. I was always lurking... lurking nearby and watching. Anyway, because of me, he never made his move, and because of him, I was thrown out early. Scumbag!
Anyway, fast-forward a couple days, and I'm back in Swedish company as Emil and Emma come to meet me in Allepey for 3 full days of relaxing on a houseboat. I had originally fretted over what to do for 3 days on a boat in the backwaters.. but thanks to the $4 bottle of Mango vodka, with a helping hand from a bottle of Black Pepper rum and 2 cases of Kingfisher... that never really became an issue. Here's a couple of photos from the trip. We also had a discussion about the merits of sharing underwear while on the boat.. but I won't get into that here. The entire trip cost around 3, 250 rupees a person... roughly equivalent to 70 dollars for 3 days cruising through the backwaters in our own personal boat. All food included. You can see the banana-leaf spread on the photo below, prepared with love by our happy cook, Rajeevan. I didn't manage to get a photo of our crew (Pushpen was the name of our captain)... but they had acute hearing and a healthy appetite for drinking games. They caught on to "pyramid" quickly. I thank Australian Tom for teaching me that one.
Where we docked for the third night.
Rajeevan's lunch spread. On the top left of the banana leaf is okra. Then there was a potato thing on the upper right, and a pineapple banana curry on top of the rice. All you can eat- since those silver containers in the corner were full to bursting with more food. The best food I've had in India (best food of my trip??). The only complaint I had was that I had to waddle around in my bikini afterwards. Most of the trip, I was simply hovering between really, really full, and uncomfortably full. It makes for a not-very-productive boat trip.
Where we docked for the third night.
Rajeevan's lunch spread. On the top left of the banana leaf is okra. Then there was a potato thing on the upper right, and a pineapple banana curry on top of the rice. All you can eat- since those silver containers in the corner were full to bursting with more food. The best food I've had in India (best food of my trip??). The only complaint I had was that I had to waddle around in my bikini afterwards. Most of the trip, I was simply hovering between really, really full, and uncomfortably full. It makes for a not-very-productive boat trip.
Rice paddies. Watch the cloud of mosquitos lift.Back in Kochi, afterwards, I managed to catch both a kalarippayattu show and a kathakali show (spelling?) in the Kathakali center. The kalarippayattu show was awesome because there were people chasing other people with knives. That's always good. The kathakali show was awesome because this guy's eyeballs were dancing all over his head. That's also always good. I'm going to try to post a video here and hopefully it'll work. I know it's sideways, but I don't know how to rotate it, so shut up. In case you're wondering what that thing he's swinging around is,... it's a double sword-whip thingy. There are two extremely long (and very sharp) swords attached to one hilt, which the guy swings around like a whip. In order to own one, you need a permit supplied by the Keralan police, lest you dice someone into fun sized pieces by accident. This guy was a gangster.
Anyway, I'm afraid if I muss with this post too much, it'll erase my video. I'm in Sri Lanka now and FUCKING LOVING IT. More to come.
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