Keralan adventures

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So ALOT has happened in the last two weeks since I wrote last. Juli and I have traveled to 5 different cities, had some incredible adventures, and helped me to accomplish one of my goals in India (The Keralan backwaters). We left Varkala a few days after the massive festival I wrote about. In the next days, we took a fishing boat out to sea with our German neighbor-dads, had some incredible conversations with people from around the world late into the evenings, as monsoon rains drenched the bamboo-hut-restaurants, and then graciously decided to leave the comfortable tourist-hole that is Varkala. We said goodbye to our new and dear friends and went up the coast to Allepey. On the first night we met some great travelers at a restaurant and had yet another late night chatting with them. By the next day all wanted to do was relax on a boat and float down the calm backwaters. SO that's exactly what we did...
We got a small row boat and took a 4 hour cruise down narrow canals, with a thick canopy of trees shielding the water from any sight from above. The frogs and birds sang loudly as we floated by and after passing a woman in a beautiful red saree washing clothes in the tiny river, I realized I had finally accomplished a dream that I have had for so long. The whole thing felt just LIKE a dream, like a surreal world was all around me which I believed was only created in movies. The calm afternoon was exactly what we needed. That night we made plans to keep heading up the coast and visit Kerala's capital of Cochin. The first night we arrived was absolute magic.
We got in at 3 found a completely decent guest house, had a fantastic Indian lunch, and then made it just in time to see a Kathakali performance. It is an ancient theatrical dance ritual rooted deep in Keralan tradition. We watched as they carefully applied makeup to their faces turning them from average Indian men into mythical heros and monsters. The whole performance is done without the use of words, so the actors' movements tell the whole story. Heavy drumming accompanies the dance and creates something on stage that I have never even come close to seeing. I became mesmerized as they strained their faces and moved with unmatched grace and energy... Just another one of those amazing memories.
So we went to sleep that night with massive smiles on our face and talked late about how crazy our lives have become. The next morning I woke up early and found an incredible cafe, which is hard to come by in India, and I killed a few hours there drinking tea, reading, and waiting for Juli to wake up. After she came and got me we decided to rent bikes (Peddle bikes of course) and traipse around the city. We visited Jew town, and a few art galleries which are big in Cochi, and then our day got interesting. It was election day in Kerala and people were voting whether or not to keep their communist Left Democratic Front in power. Yes Kerala is a beautiful example of a working socialist government, and it has nearly a 100% literacy rate, a health care system which puts the rest of India to shame, and from personal experience MUCH MUCH MUCH happier and more friendly people. SO anyways.. we were riding our bikes along and we got stopped because a t.v. news man wanted to do an interview with us for the local news. He asked us questions about communism and democracy, and the U.S., and our feelings towards it all. After telling the truth, and the anchorman commenting that he had nabbed quite the exclusive, I realized that if my comments made it back to a conservative McCarthyist government i could get into some major trouble. But I think Obama would bail me out.... So anyways, after becoming local celebrities, we hopped back on our bikes and decided to get lost in the streets of Cochi. After a few minutes we stumbled upon and LDF election ralley and joined in the communist hype! We got LDF visors, took some pictures, yelled and waved our fists, and then rode off into the sunset, with a crowd of rowdy Indian men waving from behind us. It was pretty awesome. So we had a nice dinner and then went back to our room. We crawled into bed around 11:00, but neither of us could sleep well. Around 3:00 Juli screamed and I jumped out of bed to see what had happened. Juli saw a flashlight shining at her face and opened her eyes to see a man's outline looking back at her from behind the drawn curtain.Someone had climbed up to the second floor of our guest house cut though the screen on the window to our room and was peering in at us from behind the bars of the window. I ran to the window in time to see him running off into the shadows. We were a little shaken up because we couldn't figure out if he was trying to rob us or just stare at us sleeping. Either way it was rather creepy. The next morning we discovered that the girl next to us hadn't woken up when the man cut her screen he was able to pull here night stand over to the window and steal her phone, credit cards, and some cash. We were very luck Juli didn't sleep soundly that night.
That morning we were scheduled to take a 7 hour houseboat ride down the Cochi backwaters, and instead of fretting about the previous night, we moved our stuff away from the windows and had an incredible time on the boat. After seeing some beautiful villages, having a traditional Keralan lunch on a banana leaf plate (which is much better than the dirty newspaper plates everything else is served on), and floating gently down the backwaters again we arrived back home to find NOTHING STOLEN! We were pretty happy about that. But then we went and had dinner at this amazing Italian place and while we were waiting for our entree's, and chatting with a girl sitting next to us, four friends that I met when I was in Rishikesh walked in the door. I hadn't seen or spoken to them in over 2 months and they just showed up for one of their last nights in India. But it doesn't stop there. So as we were eating, one of our good friends from Varkala strolled into the restaurant. At that point I thought the world had turned upside down... but THEN! After a great meal, some wonderful conversation, and 3 hours, we were walking home and ran into a guy that we had volunteered with at Sadhana Forest! Yes it was madness. Pure unadulterated madness.
SO I will end here because I am sure you don't want to read any more and this internet cafe is starting to cramp my style. So next time I will fiinish about crazy Kerala and hopefully have new adventures.......

Well I saved this in order to upload pictures and so I am going to continue on. Not too much else to say but I will just finish writing about Kerala so it will be done before i get to Delhi on Sunday... So there was crazy dinner night running into everyone we knew in Cochi and then the next day we took off for Munnar. It a beautiful hill station in Kerala, and it is surrounded by hundreds of acres of tea plantations. They spread along along the sides of the hills and look like tiny mountains with green shag carpets on them. It is at a very high elevation so the weather is completely different there. Instead of the oppressive heat that is everywhere in India it was cool and cloudy and rainy. It was SUCH a nice relief from the heat. So we spent the day just relaxin and taking in the views. We hired a driver to take us around to all the sights and he started off at this one nice viewpoint. Juli and I walked around to take some pictures and the whole place was filled with Indian tourists. There was this big group of Indian boys that kept looking at us and whispering to each other, and just as we were about to be offended one of them walked over and asked if he could take a picture with us. And then all of his friends wanted pictures too... and then a husband and wife wanted a picture of us with their kids... and then with each of them... and then in a massive group picture with everyone. We felt so famous, I almost asked if they had seen our t.v. interview. So then we continued on and got to the top point and as we were walking down the path to the lookout point it started pouring down rain. So we ducked into a little tea stall to wait it out, but as it seemed to only get worse we thought we would be stuck there for hours. But then our amazing driver came strolling down the path with this MASSIVE umbrella. One of those ones that you put over an outside table. So we hopped underneath it and went to this incredible high point and looked out onto the rolling hills of tea plantations and valleys between them, in the middle of monsoon rains and admired the grandness of the whole moment.
The next day we had a picnic with some cool Israeli neighbors and made little people out of fruit and tried to figure out our next travel plans. We decided to head back to Cochi the next morning and get on the first bus north and see where we ended up. After 2 days, 6 buses, 4 rickshaws, 1 train, and 24 hours of travel we have ended up on a beautiful beach in Goa. We are still not sure exactly where this place is but is is in South Goa and starts with a P. Its sheer luck that we are here and have already run into 3 people we know. MAN traveling is crazy. So thanks for listening. Until next time....

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