Yesterday, the day after my birthday, Naomi and I rented a scooter and headed into Mapsa to run a few errands and then headed out to Vagator Beach as Naomi wanted to check out the Portuguese fort (Fort Chapora) that I visited last January with my Kiwi friends Mallory and Rewa and my English football watching buddy Jon. We had a great afternoon biking around and a new thing for me was our encounter with a bread walla.
Let me explain. A “walla” is a seller or vendor so you can have a “fruit walla” or a “chai walla” (chai being Indian milk tea). For the past months living in Arambol at Chili’s Guesthouse on the main street, I’ve been woken up many times at 7am by the sound of a horn honking, one of those handheld horns that you typically associate with clowns. It’s the bread walla riding a bike with a big round, drum shaped covered basket full of various bread products. They return in the early evening around supper time selling their goods to whoever comes out from their home upon hearing the honking. I’ve never bought anything from them but after leaving the fort we passed a bread man on a bike. Naomi told me to stop and we waited for him to catch up. We purchased a few flat buns and some doughnut shaped bread rolls. To our amazement the bread was still warm...fresh from the oven and it was super tasty. I haven’t had any decent bread in all my time in India so this was quite a treat. I’ll have to stop the bread walla more often.
This should have been in the previous post...this is my friend “Bea” who likes to share food with me often:
A strange water fountain in the Mapsa market that reminded me a bit of that ugly statue in Palolem:
The sellers that were hoping for Naomi’s business:
Naomi modeling the goods:
Climbing up to the fort at Vagator:
Naomi with the coast to the north:
Some funny young Indians striking their best pose for us:
Naomi and I on the back wall of Fort Chapora:
Today we were off to Kerala. Kerala is a long and skinny state in the south of India bordered by the Arabian Sea on one side and the Western Ghats mountain range in the east and it’s a bit larger than Vancouver Island in size and kind of the same shape but contains over 32 million people (almost the population of all of Canada!). Its main export is tea but in recent years it has done a fabulous job of promoting tourism with its slogan “God’s Own Country”.
At lunch Derek, the manager of Chilli’s Guesthouse where I’ve been staying for the last few months invited Naomi to have lunch with him, Caffena his wife and their two year old daughter Seona. Actually, it turned out to be more of a matter of them just feeding us as they weren’t eating but it was a very nice gesture and it was nice to sit and chat with them. Seona often comes to my room yelling my name “DAY-veed”...super cute girl.
With cute Seona:
And her dad Derek:
Fuelling up at the train station with some “non-veg” grub:
The train left the Goan city of Margao at 9pm so we took a taxi for the hour and a half drive. Margao is not a pretty city, fairly industrial and also a port city, really the workhorse metropolis of Goa. By chance, Iftach and Iren, who remained behind in Palolem when we left a few days ago, happened to have booked tickets for the same train so we met up with them at the station. Also by chance, they happened to be in the same train car, in 2nd class A/C. We hoped to sit together as that would help the 15 hour train ride pass faster and be more fun. Not surprisingly, when Naomi and I got to our seats, a family had already commandeered them. They asked whether we would mind switching with them so that they could sit together. I checked out their seats and there was another family with a baby hoping to change with our new seats...chaos from the outset! Thankfully from the few times that I have taken the train, I knew that the old school computerized seating chart would be pasted on the outside of the train car. On checking that out we saw that the car wasn’t full and we found a group of four seats all together...sweet.
For some reason the train was 20 minutes late leaving and then stopped about 30 minutes later for almost an hour. We kept hearing sounds as if they were trying to start the engine but then it would die off almost immediately. The train had stopped on a banked curve so the whole car tilted to one side too. Eventually we started to roll again as we snacked on some chips and cookies while chatting and laughing.
Iftach and me on the train:
Sleeping on a train is never that easy thanks to the irregular bumps and jolts but we all managed to get some shuteye. In the morning the other three slept in while I did some blogging while watching the countryside pass by. Surprisingly after our slow start to the trip we arrived on time in Kerala.
Good morning Naomi!
Well maybe they’re not getting up just yet:
And why wouldn’t they, with such a yummy breakfast waiting for them?!?
Iren and Iftach finally enjoying breakfast:
My morning blogging station:
Naomi went to check out what 1st class looks like:
First class cabin:
The passing countryside:
Passing through some station:
Exiting our air conditioned car we were hit by the early afternoon heat. Our stop was Ernakulam Junction which is essentially Kochi (also known as Cochin). We knew that we wanted to head to the Fort Kochi area which houses a tourist enclave and from a sign we saw we found out that it was about 14 kilometres away. Naomi asked at an information spot how much we should expect to pay for a taxi and she was told 400 rupees ($9). Exiting the station a man immediately approached us offering to give us a ride. I asked how much and he said 280...deal. He told us to wait and he disappeared, returning in a rickshaw (or tuk-tuk). Hmm...no wonder it was cheaper and will all four of us with our luggage fit in there? Sure, this is India!
Finally off of the train:
Which way do we go?
Our driver Raphael was a jovial fellow and he seemed to appreciate when I asked what his name was in Hindi. He told me that the main language in Kerala is Malayalam (which happens to be a palindrome for you word geeks out there...it must be the longest, if only, palindromic name of a language). As we bumped our way along the dreadfully potholed roads of a very commercial district, we could see the strange curvy letters of the Malayalam language everywhere. Naomi stated that it reminded her of Thai writing.
During our 20 minute ride we had one minor glancing blow with the bumper of a fancy white BMW (his fault and obviously worse for him) and one near collision with a motorbike who was traveling in the opposite direction and came straight at us in our lane as he was trying to turn to his right. Just par for the course I think. We crossed a couple of bridges and passed a naval base until finally reaching the peninsula where Fort Kochi was once located. The fort was built at the entrance to a natural harbour around the 1500s by the Portuguese and was later taken over by the Dutch.
As is typical, even though we told our driver the name of a homestay (guesthouses where the family lives in it too), he first took us to another place, presumably where he would get a small commission if we stayed there. We checked it out but decided to move on. Raphael took us to our requested spot (Adam’s Old Inn) and there happened to be 3-4 othere homestays on Burgher Street. In the end we settled on one called “Om’s Homestay”, a little away from the real centre of the tourist area. The owner’s name was Tresa and in my mind she could almost pass as a Hawaiian or Fijian middle aged woman. She seemed nice but at times communication was a bit difficult with her but the place itself was decent and clean.
After settling in we went for a walk around to familiarize ourselves with the area. There was a Basilica within spitting distance of our homestay called Santa Cruz. I guess Pope John Paul II deemed it a Basilica some time in the 80s. We decided to forego entering the church for another day and instead wandered towards the coast. We spotted a Chabad House (a Jewish centre in a foreign land where Jews can meet) and Iftach was excited to go in. I was impressed with the warm welcome we received although I didn’t know much of what was being said between Iftach and a young rabbi as they were talking in Hebrew. There were a few other people sitting at a table just finishing a meal. We were offered some water while Iftach disappeared with the rabbi to discuss the upcoming Yom Kippur celebrations.
The nearby Santa Cruz Basilica:
Twenty minutes later we were back on the street and heading towards the Chinese fishing nets. This icon of Cochin essentially looks like some large telephone poles dangling over the water at strange angles to allow a large net to be dipped in and out of the water to catch fish. We watched for a few minutes but the only bounty hauled in was dead leaves from the nearby overhanging trees.
The touristy Princess Street:
A fancy hotel, but you could stay in the lap of luxury for under $200 (still out of my current budget!):
After a crappy little meal at a street cafe, Iftach and Iren headed off to make a Skype call home and Naomi suggested that we hop on a little ferry over to Vypin Island (pronounced “vee-peen”). Instead of taking a tourist ferry, she wanted to go with the locals. We bought our tickets which cost a whopping 5 rupees for both of us (12 cents) and boarded the flat decked boat along with other pedestrians, 8-10 cars and rickshaws and a multitude of motorbikes. The crossing only took about five minutes.
The menu at the not so nice place we chose instead...I love the kind of toast you can get and good luck with the English Breakfast!
I guess we have arrived:
The infamous Chinese fishing nets:
Naomi ready for the crossing...but I’m sure more people and vehicles will join us first:
Now it’s loaded:
The Chinese fishing nets from the water:
Some of the local maritime action:
We walked along a path by the water and then sat for a moment to watch a small tanker pass by. Reaching the end of the path, we wandered along a path into the nearby neighbourhood. The houses were of all different shapes, sizes and colours and the path, not wide enough to accommodate cars, seemed to curve here and there in a slightly haphazard way. We were both struck by how friendly everyone was as we received smiles and greetings of hello from almost everyone.
The small tanker:
My attempt at an artistic shot:
Naomi exploring the neighbourhood:
Communism is fairly popular in Kerala:
Just as we were about to exit the quarter, there was a middle aged Indian woman wearing a t-shirt with a large Tweety Bird from Looney Tunes on it. Being the only foreigners around, she immediately said hello and asked where we were from. From her disposition, I wondered whether she was drunk but no, she was just a happy and slightly odd lady. When she found out that Naomi was from Israeli, she began to sing an Israeli song called “Jessica” as it turned out that her name was Jessy. We chatted with her for 10 minutes and she insisted we take down her address and send her some nice pictures from our homelands to her.
Our new friend Jessy:
We hopped back on the ferry as the sky started to light up in various pinks and blues during the commencement of sunset. Again we were the only foreigners on the ferry so we had many looks and stares but all of them harmless and many accompanied with smiles.
One of the big industrial docks:
Where big trees grow, and dead tuk-tuks go:
That evening the four of us ventured out for dinner and found out that Kerala seems to work on a different schedule than in Goa with most places closing down early. One of the few restaurants we found was a fancy restaurant at a hotel with an outdoor pool (not too common in India). Even stranger was the fact that they has a mikveh, which is a purifying pool for Orthodox Jewish women utilized after menstruation periods as well as before their wedding ceremony.
The pool at the restaurant:
Another aspect that surprised us was that although I had read in a few places that Kerala has one of the highest alcohol consumption rates of all of the states in India, buying alcohol is not that easy. Most restaurants do not serve alcohol unless they are considered a bar as well and there are no shops selling alcohol. I’ll have to try and figure out this mystery of Kerala supposedly being a booze loving place because at the moment, I just don’t see it...
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