Fort Cochin - the first stop in India

Chinese fishing net

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So I got into the Cochin International Airport at 9am and discovered that I am not 10 hours ahead of eastern standard time, I'm 9.5 hours ahead... which makes life much more complicated. Henry called me while I was in the airport and when I realized I was in an airport in India with no hotel to go to and no way of getting there, he said it was awesome... I was just beginning to think oh shit what have I done. Regardless, I got through customs and all that and even found a taxi. I had it take me to the first hotel on my list, the Elite Hotel (pronounced here E-Light Hoe-tle... its funny). So they had a room open, which I took. While I waited for it to be cleaned, I walked down to the water and checked out the Chinese Fishing nets - very cool. They are giant nets attached to poles on a platform... I am going to watch them haul in the fish later today I think. So I got my room and promptly went to sleep after my 3 hours of sleep on the plane. I woke up and decided I needed to be clean - it's hot here. (Mom I do have a shower I was just too tired to notice). So the shower. It's one of the European handheld showerheads on a hose... but its not in any container - its just in a corner of the bathroom. So when I take a shower, the WHOLE bathroom takes a shower too. Pretty funny. Luckily my bathroom has no toilet paper to get wet (AAAH!) So I showered and went to a restaurant called the History Restaurant, which is in a very  nice hotel. It wasn't open yet, so I went to the bar, and drank.... get ready.... 2 beers! I met two guys from Geneva who work supporting a school and orphanage in Chennai (my last stop in India) and I gave them my email in case they can come up with a volunteer opportunity for me. After my two beers and not having eaten in something like 18 hours I was very much in need of dinner. The restaurant is called the history restaurant because the menu takes you through the history of the area - English, Dutch, and Portugese have all made an impact here. I had portugese soup (spicy, with sausages in it), and prawns grilled in coriander and sesame with a side of burgul pilaf. The prawns were good, the pilaf was a little strange. Then for dessert I had a banana stuffed with coconut and cardimum (I think) baked and served in some kind of sauce. Yummy. I stole toilet paper from the fancy hotel on my way out (must conserve my tissues!) and walked home. Apparently women don't go out at night... there was not a single woman on the street, especially walking alone, so I went to my hotel to go to bed.

fishing boats and nets

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This morning I had the hardest time dragging myself out of bed. Stupid jetlag. I got up and had breakfast at a "garden" restaurant, which is really inside. Even my scrambled eggs were spciy. The important part was that I got coffee in me (which kind of tasted like weed... dont know what to make of that) Then I set of on a self-guided walking tour of Fort Cochin - or a self-guided lets see how many autorickshaw drivers can harrass me. An autorickshaw is sort of like a motorcycle, but a tricycle with a little cab on the back. I was thinking about the fact that women use 20,000 words a day and men use 7000. If I didn't have to say "no thanks" or "im not interested" so many times I would be using about 1000 words. Also, the lines on the road don't mean anything. In fact, it doesnt seem to matter what side of the road they drive on either. And the horns can mean anything from hello, to get out of the way, to do you need a ride, to im coming around this corner and i'll be damned if I'm stopping so you better stop. Its really crazy. I wish some of my African travel buddies were here - much more fun to sweat and have someone else to share in the sweaty hot misery than to be gross by yourself. I had fried rice for lunch, and then hired an autorickshaw to take me to Mattancherry Palace, the old Raja's palace. It had some amazing Hindi murals, which I obviously know nothing about. If there was a bookstore I would get a book on them. I couldn't take pictures which was too bad. I met an english guy there who was travelling on his own and seemed very nice but he was walking and I had the taxi driver waiting for me so there goes one blown opportunity of a travel buddy. The driver took me to a place where they process and prepare ginger for export (be proud Chris W!) They dry it in the sun (just like cocoa) and then wash it with some sort of chemical before exporting it. I think that's it for now. There are a lot of places that advertise that they can convert digital camera pictures to cds so I might be able to upload some pics, but I'm not sure. Depends if its worth it. Anyway, I'll probably be here tomorrow and then leave the next morning (Thursday) so I will finish this tomorrow night maybe before I leave.

another chinese fishing net

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So today I got up way too early to take a backwater cruise. We drove in a van for about an hour to get to a small part of the backwater, where we went for a cruise on a houseboat for a few hours. We saw a plant where they make calcium carbonate - basically talcum powder - out of mussel shells, which eventually gets put into calcium tablets (I think.) They also did the whole spice tour thing (although the one in Zanzibar was much cooler) We saw people in boats fishing (although not quite the right word) for mussels and others digging up the sod from the bottom of the river. We cruised around for a while and I met some nice people: one woman who travels to India every year. She is from the UK and was born in Tanzania... never figured out her connection to India. I also met a girl from germany who is a social working and has been travelling around India for almost a month on her vacation. She has backpacked in all the places I'm going and she said I probably won't meet people so much in India but when I get to Vietnam I should meet people to hang out with ALL THE TIME. so thats good. Then I met two English girls who are working as flight attendants based out of Bahrain so this was their 2 days off - not sure I could do that. Regardless, it was REALLY nice to talk to people. So at lunch time we docked the boat and had a traditional vegetarian lunch. It was really good, but I have no idea what we ate... wish I did. After lunch we got back in the vans and drove about five minutes to another launch where we got in smaller canoes, kind of like in venice, they push them with a stick. We went into some of the smaller backwaters, which were beautiful. Its like canoeing through a little canopy of green - its absolutely peaceful and beautiful. We stopped and saw coir making (kind of like twine) and we got to drink the milk of a coconut... which a guy climbed up a tree to get. Very cool. We cruised around in the smaller parts of the backwaters and then headed back to the hotel. I'm exhausted, but hopefully by the time you guys get this I'll have loaded some photos! YAY! miss you all tons!