The Best Laid Plans

Tembo paddled without break for 8 hou

Everything happens for a reason and even the best laid travel plans need some leeway. Case in point: I meant to leave Fort Cochin after two nights. In that time I explored the amazing backwaters on a bamboo houseboat, escaped the heat for a weekend to the cool, lush green hills of tea heaven, Munnar, and made friends with the local boys at Salt n Pepper bar, a weird little hideaway full of incense smoke and bad lighting. But I’m ready to leave the state of Kerala behind, with its beautiful beaches and too many tourist enclaves. I am hugely looking forward to the slightly more chill state of Tamil Nadu, known more for its holy temples than its tourist packages. But alas! Flights to Tamil Nadu’s capital are fully booked and I have to wait another two days before I can go. What to do, what to do...

I’ve been tucked under the protective wing here in Cochin by Pius and his lovely wife and sister, who run both Adam’s Old Inn (the budget backpacker place I originally stayed at) and the El Kapitan Inn (a more upscale home stay they moved me to, free of extra charge). Pius is always ready for a discussion, mostly about the difference between western and Indian values. He speaks, not with a tone of judgement, but from the perspective of a backpacker innkeeper who has seen/heard/smelled some pretty crazy stuff. He told me things that had happened in my room that I really didn’t want to know, but he seems to want my opinion on pretty much everything from Indian marriage traditions to sexual deviance. I’ve taken the very un-Kirsten approach to the latter question and didn’t voice an opinion at all. Biting my tongue is one of the many trials India has put before me.

Where all of Fort Cochin traveler washing is done. Impressive!

So with really no plans other than a looming exam and bucket-loads of school-related research to do, I set forth in Cochin to find… something. It turns out that I found many rickshaw drivers who were eager to harass the early rising tourist. The constant barrage of touts made my ears ring until one stood out from the rest. Fiser (I assume I am spelling his name wrong, it could be like “Phizer” as in the pharmaceuticals company) was hanging back from the crowd, smiling peacefully next to the most pimped out tuk-tuk I have ever seen. Flashing lights, an upholstered ceiling, leather bench seat for passengers, this ride was pretty fly for a brown guy. Of course I hopped in and had the most randomly fun afternoon careening through the streets of Kochi, dodging goats and visiting laundry ghats (to some this would seem boring but to a neat-freak it was AMAZING!!!!!), a fisherman’s hideout where they obviously don’t see many tourists judging by the unabashed stares and a rug/jewels/pashmina/everything shop where the guy, once he realised I was not going to buy, instead offered me some marijuana and the proposal to “hanga out” that evening. I declined, but I’m glad I had to stay in Cochin another couple of days. I would have missed out on a new friend and a thirst for Indian rugs.

These hills were alive... with the smell of delicious tea

Now, it is once again raining. The afternoon brought forth a mighty thunder clap, some white lightening and monsoon rains that have kept this traveler beneath a leaky tin roof, cloaked in mosquitoes happy to have found a Canadian to snack on during the rain. Tomorrow I leave for Chennai, and plan to quickly escape from there for Malamapuram (ok, I am definitely spelling that one wrong but my travel book is inside and I am too lazy to get up and get it). Once there, I have promised myself that I will focus on my studies… unless another Fiser happens upon me, of course.