The last few days have been pretty action packed - and the humidity in Fort Cochin has made it nigh on impossible to do anything without feeling like you're in an industrial strength Swedish sauna. But here goes...
After getting back to Goa on Friday we made our way straight to the beach to catch up on the sun and take a dip in the sea. We had booked a cookery lesson with a guide we met called Shiba, and on Sunday we were taken to his modest house in Colva Beach. It was tiny more like a garage than a house, but definitely a home. He and his wife live here with their three children so it must get pretty crowded. His wife Usha, managed to rustle up in the smallest kitchen imaginable a delicious coconut curry, veg samosas and chapatis all from fresh ingredients.
The next morning we headed north to Bogmallo Beach where I had booked a half-day's scuba diving. The diving school, was based in a small shack, and we had to push the boat out to sea ourselves using wooden posts and good, old-fashioned elbow grease. Angela, who had opted to go snorkeling, picked up a couple of cheese toasties, but as we hauled the boat into the sea a crow swooped down and stole her breakfast!
The diving was ok. It didn't live up to the Red Sea, but was a good opportunity to refresh what I'd learnt a year ago before we hit Thailand - where I'm told it's very good. The problem was that the water was very cloudy, visibility was something like 4m, and there was a strong surge that pulled you back and forth underwater. For my first dive I saw a grand total of four clown fish - four!
Before I went under for the second dive, and fully kitted up and in the water, the rubber o-ring (which seals the compressed air from escaping the regulator) on my tank blew. This resulted in the most deafening and piercing scream as escaping air blasted out directly behind my head. For a minute I had visions that I was going to explode along with the tank, and back on the boat Angela was looking worried, but it was all fixed quite quickly and I didn't need to change my wetsuit.
We later headed back to the guesthouse for a typical chilled afternoon Goa-style, before another early morning train.
After an uneventful 15-hour train journey we finally arrived in Kerala at 11pm Tuesday. Despite the train being miles better than the bus it still felt like 15-hours. I whiled away the time catching up on my reading and listening to the Ricky Gervais podcast (thanks Matt!).
On arrival at Ernakulam Junction station, in Kochi, Kerala, we were amazed to find - despite our boast that we hadn't seen a cloud for a month - that there was a thunderstorm! As soon as we got off of the air-conditioned carriage the humidity hit us, and within about a micro-second I was covered in sweat. Our first job was to find a taxi to our guesthouse, Greenwood Bethlehem in Fort Cochin - which has been officially blessed by Pope Benedict XVI (I've seen the certificate).
Fighting through the crush around the taxi stand and using my backpack as a kind of shield/battering ram we were soon in a tuk-tuk. Unfortunately our driver didn't speak or even understand English, and obviously had no idea where we were going. Halfway there we ended up in another tuk-tuk, which helpfully dropped us in what looked to me like a ghetto. But after warily picking our way through a couple of alleys we found our guesthouse, where we promptly flaked out.
If Goa is India-lite, where westerners go to relax, Cochin is the place the natives head to when they need to chill. It's so laid back that waiters forget your orders for often hours at a time, men - obviously tired of pulling on trousers - don't bother, they just wrap themselves in what look like towels and blankets and amble around the place. Even the touts can't be arsed with a full blown sales pitch. Consequently, it's quite a nice place to come to, and unbelievably is quite clean with barely a cow in sight. But man, it's hot.
Yesterday, we stumbled upon the famous Chinese fishing nets - basically wooden constructions that lever fishing nets into and out of the sea. After watching for a while the fishermen let me have a go and I helped haul in the morning's catch - which was great fun! We next made our way to the ferry terminal. Our plan was to head to Ernakulam on the mainland to catch a Bollywood film in an Indian cinema we'd found. Unfortunately when we arrived they were only showing James Bond, so we'll have to wait until we get to another town.
We got the ferry back, made our way back to the guesthouse, freshened up and dashed out again to catch a performance of traditional Keralan music and dancing called 'Kathkali'. Now, if you've heard of this I imagine this would have been a fantastic experience, and to its credit the costumes were pretty fantastic, but I left an hour-and-a-half later wondering if had been worth the 200R each we'd paid.
The basis of the performance is a series of 24 intricate hand and face movements that subtly depict different moods. It's quite hazy, but I think the 1-hour story we saw was about the sister of a god who went to kidnap some other god's sisters for her brother who was also a god. Somewhere along the line a demon was involved - he looked like Papa Lazarou if you've seen the League of Gentlemen. There's a lot of screaming and stamping of feet involved and in the end a god kills the demon and they all stop screaming. Apparently - for any masochists out there - the traditional Kathkali performances go on for six to nine hours.
The accompanying music was good but otherwise I'd recommend putting your feet in a bowlful of scorpions - it would be less painful.
Tonight we're going to see a traditional Keralan martial arts performance - which apparently is the father of all the eastern martial arts. I'm hopeful this will be a little more entertaining - watch this space. Tomorrow we're heading to Munnar - the home of tea.
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