We took a local bus from Pondicherry to Chennai airport. We were the only goras on the bus. If you want to get a sense of India, a real sense, skip the first class air-conditioned sleeper cars and take a ride in the unreserved sections of a train or bus. The amount of pushing and shoving to get on the bus baffles the mind, especially when compared to the unimaginable courtesy of the same passengers once the journey is underway. One minute a man, woman and (or) child is shoving you so hard it seems they could crush you and not five minutes later when they lightly brush your leg they apologize so profusely and genuinely, you can't help but laugh at the ironic contradiction. I am reading "Shantaram," a well known novel by an Australian fugitive in Bombay who describes this contradiction thus. India is a place of necessity. The amount of pushing ans shoving to get on the bus is necessary if you don't want to get left behind. But it is equal to the level of courtesy necessary to make the journey afterward, on the crowded bus, as pleasant as possible.
During the bus ride I felt a huge sense of elation, partly because we were moving on to somewhere new, but mostly because I was feeling well enough to actually get there. At the front of the bus was a sign that said its maximum capacity was 48. There were at least 70 people crowded on around us, and when we rolled out of town we picked up several more. Each bench seat had room for two, but in every row except ours there were three people seated. So when an elderly woman got on and asked to sit with us, we had to oblige. Unfortunately Justin is a solid head taller that the next tallest Indian and he was already uncomfortably folded into our seat with our backpacks a day bags strewn about us. So I, in my elation, gave up my seat to the old woman and sat on the floor. Well, she was horrified and throughout the whole of the journey looked at me with shock and scorn, and continued to pat the minuscule amount of space between her and Justin with an an expression that said, "How could you possibly prefer to sit on the ground when there is plenty of space for you right here."
When the bus finally rumbled into the dusty city of Chennai we were directed where to jump off, and I mean that quite literally as the bus never actually came to a stop. From there we walked to the small international airport to await our departure to Trivandrum. We had given ourselves plenty of time, since India is famous for turning 1 1/2 hour journeys into day long affairs. And so we were quite early for our flight and set up shop at the airport. For a while we wandered around the many stands and shops, but there wasn't much to do at Chennai international and so we eventually ended up sitting in corner waiting for our gate announcement.
While waiting we met another pair of travelers, our first really, who we seen around in Pondicherry. It is amazing how in this enormous country you continually see the same travelers in different places. We started chatted with them and eventually exchanged contact information. We weren't planning on going to Goa, where they were headed but we told them that if we changed our minds we would get in touch with them. And then all of a sudden it was time for us to scramble for the plane. That is another funny thing about Indian travel. You can be waiting somewhere for hours with no idea where your departure gate is, but once it is announced you usually have only moments to get to the gate or risk being left behind. So we hurriedly said goodbye to Sean and Aileen and boarded the plane for Trivandrum in the southern province of Kerala, God's Own Country.
The first thing I noticed about Kerala, and Trivandrum more specifically, is how much quieter it is than Tamil Nadu. During our ride from the airport to Vakala, where we were staying, Justin and I hardly spoke and the ride was surprisingly quiet and calm. A new sense of serenity permeated the air. It may also have been because we were riding in an Ambassador, the fantastic and iconic white India cabs. Being in an Ambassador for the first time after so many rickshaws felt a bit like being in a tank. It was a longish car trip from Trivandrum to Vakala, perhaps 40 minutes, although it still cost us less than $20. And it was quite dark so we were glad that we had made arrangements for a hotel for that first night in Vakala. We were planning to stay at the Hotel New Heaven for a week, but we knew upon arrival that we weren't going to be there longer than one night.
The room was nothing special and the ceiling fan whined so offensively it sounded like an animal was being tortured all night. Eventually I got up and turned it off, preferring to be woken up endlessly by the heat instead of having that sound creep into my dreams. Both Justin and I had a restless night's sleep that first night because of it, but also because of the mosquito net above up which was set so low that it lay directly on top of our faces and bodies and kept entangling us all night. How a mosquito net can be effective when it is laying right on top of you is beyond me, and in fact I know it is not. So when we woke the next morning our first priority was to scout out new accommodations in town for the remainder of our stay. There were plenty of options and we eventually settled on a place called the Bamboo Village where we got a great deal on a little freestanding bamboo hut. We spent the rest of the day strolling around Vakala beach taking it all in. And actually the rest of the week unfolded in much the same way.
We got into a routine of waking around 8 or 9 going to the Cafe del Mare for delicious coffee and breakfast. I had the same thing everyday. (Hard boiled eggs and toast. I'd prefer soft boiled, but after the deathness, as I have taken to calling my bout of illness in Pondi I am not about to risk Salmonella.) From there we would make our way to the beautiful beach, rent an umbrella for 150Rs and sometimes lounge chairs, and settle in for a full day of sunning, swimming and wave jumping. Vakala has gotten to be more crowded, apparently, in the last few years, but even still there was plenty of space on the beach and also a sense of being in on a still untapped secret.
My only criticism of the place, and it is a sort of catch 22, is that the beach town is actually 5 kilometer or so from the actual Vakala town, and so quite isolated from any real local population. And so, while this isolation from the hectic real life of India provided a nice and relaxed feeling, it also felt a bit false and almost too easy. This also means of course that everyone in Vakala is a tourist or a local who works in the tourist industry. There are a dozen restaurants all serving a variation of the same thing, and tons of shops selling virtually identical souvenirs and garments. I did however, do some shopping at a few places, including a shop run by a pair of brothers from Kashmir who had some of the most beautiful cashmere shawls, bed spreads, and curtains I have ever seen.
Throughout the whole of the week, Justin and I would make a guilty joke about how difficult we were finding life in Vakala and how perpetually stressed out we were. We also made jokes at the expense of other tourists we saw, because despite the beauty of this place, and the indisputable ease with which everything could be attained there were so many sour faces. And Justin commented that it reminded him of that Sheryl Crow song, "If it makes you happy, why the hell are you so sad." We never did figure out what the bad smell in Vakala was that made everyone look like they were smelling a fart. We vowed not to be like all those other tourists and smiled almost the entire week we were there. Especially because, although it was too easy, after long fall of constant work for us both it was nice to have part of the trip feel more like a vacation than travel. India is amazing but in order to see it that way you have to fight for it a bit, so it was nice to not have to fight at all in Vakala.
We also enjoyed meeting other tourists. The first was a couple from Australia, who we met as we were checking out of the Hotel New Heaven on our first morning in town. Lara and Stewart have an itinerary very similar to Justin and I although they are on a faster track and will be in se Asia by February, avoiding the insane heat that will greet us when we arrive in April. Right off the bat we loved them, and agreed to meet them for a drink that evening at Rock and Roll, the local bar, that never played any rock and roll. Lara and I also exchanged novels we had recently finished which delighted me. And I hope that will be a trend I can continue throughout the trip, picking up and discarding books with other travelers.
Through Lara and Stewart we also met Renee and Mary Ann, or Pierre and Bobby Joe as Justin and I took to calling them. PB and J were also Canadian, from Surrey near Vancouver. Unfortunately it was clear after that first night of drinks that Mary Ann was not a big fan of mine. I accidentally offended her by saying that Ontario has better lakes than BC and that Canadian cigarettes are disgusting. She doesn't smoke but she took it personally, and I was no longer allowed to wear the figurative Canadian traveler badge in their eyes again. In fact they introduced me as the American of our sextet for the remainder of the week. To her credit, Mary Ann did seem to come around about me over the course of the week and when we said our goodbye she hesitated and then gave me a very warm hug. We didn't exchange any contact information but they did promise to find us on facebook. Lara and Stewart on the other hand were headed to Allepey and then to Goa and so we figured we would run into them again. They also promised to give us some tips for the next few legs of our trip since they will be only a few steps ahead of us for the next few months.
There was some unfortunate news which we learned in Vakala and that is that the Indian government has recently changed the laws governing multi entry VISA, making it impossible for us to leave for Nepal for ten days at the end of February as we had originally planned. So we had to reorganize our trip slightly and change our train booking to stay in Rishikesh an extra week. We chose Rishikesh because we can do a trek for a few days from there, which is what we had hoped to do in Nepal. So, even though it is disappointing it isn't going to ruin the trip. What is disappointing is that after going through quite a bit of hassle to make the needed changes we've learned that we could have gotten around the new law in a number ways and still gone to Nepal, but oh well, such is life. We also decided to change our original plan of skipping Goa and we will be arriving there in the next few days. At the end of our week, we were both sad and excited to be leaving Vakala for Kollum and the backwater region of Kerala...
highlights of Vakala
wave jumping - Justin and I loved the Indian Ocean and the waves of Vakala were awesome
great Italian food - at the Italian Cafe
eggs for breakfast - I love Indian food but I can't eat curry for breakfast
shopping - needs no explanation
vacationing - travel is great but vacationing is the real relaxation
cafe latte- at the cafe del mare
umbrellas, lounge chairs, and fruit at your fingertips- while at the beach
getting a tan - a real one I promise
cruising for hot guys - and it was like shooting fish in a barrel
lowlights of Vakala
pouty tourists
Justin got a less horrible but still shitty round of TD- pun intended
crappy music at all of the bars
The Hotel New Heaven
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