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Published: November 10th 2005
We slowly worked our way down from Pushkar heading south to Kerala. After approximately 45 hours aboard glorious Indian Rail (which we’re often proudly told is the largest employer in the world - take that Wal-Mart!) we arrived. Rumor has it that after spending time in the North, Kerala can seem like another country. In many ways, it is a very unique state. It is one of the most densely populated, culturally mixed and politically unusual in the world. It is home to 747 people per square kilometer, compared to 3 in Canada. Despite this high density, Kerala has the highest literacy rate and best health care in India and is the only state where women outnumber men.
Because of the preference for boy children there are less than 93 women for every 100 men in the population compared to the global ratio of approximately 105 female births for every 100 males. In the Punjab and Haryana provinces the ratio is more shocking at 80 women to 100 men (eek) and is starting to cause major social problems. The general explanation for this disparity is the practice of female infanticide linked to the remaining tradition of the dowry system, which
means the family will need pay out a substantial amount of money when a female child is married. In general, we thought that these attitudes seem to be changing, especially amongst the younger generation that we talked with. The many signs warning doctors about the illegibility of pre-natal sex determination - see photo - show that the government is doing something about the issue. However, Unicef reports the problem is actually getting worse as scientific methods of detecting the sex of a baby are improving and becoming increasing available in rural areas.
Having only a few days in Kerala, we decided to stay put in the area of Fort Cochin (new name - Fort Kochi), which is a peninsula linked to the mainland. Fort Cochin has a unique history; since the 1500s it has been dominated in turn by the Portuguese, Dutch and the British. Each ruling power has left churches and palaces behind which makes for an interesting and somewhat bizarre mix of architecture. We spent the first day exploring and walking along the shoreline, watching the local fishermen bring in the daily catch with the massive Chinese fishing nets that this area is also known for.
Backwater tours are a common way to see more of the inland area, and on our second day we joined a group of about 10 others on the tour, winding our way through rivers and water passages, past tiny villages and palm covered islands. For the afternoon part of the tour we transferred onto smaller canoes with different guides, unfortunately just in time for the skies to open up. Monsoon season was evidently not over in Kerala. Rain poured down, and despite requests by our fellow tour group (a mix of vacationing Indian families and foreigners) to abort mission it was clear that our afternoon tour guides needed to complete their leg of the journey to be paid, and so onward we paddled into some extremely isolated and beautiful areas while the boats began to fill up with water. Now it was our turn to be the scenery. Whole Keralan families huddled under the safety of their shelters as we paddled past, laughing and waving at the silly tourists paddling slowly by in the unrelenting rain. (We’ve often become the spectacle rather than the spectators in India.) From what we can tell, staring is not considered rude so it’s not
Shipping sand to town
This boat may appear to be sinking but that's just how it is done.uncommon to be sitting in a restaurant eating and have an audience of about 15 people gathered around observing our ‘western way’ of trying to eat Indian food (we made little progress and are still very reliant on forks). Even just waiting for trains we often have a small interest group gathered around. There have been endless opportunities for our very North American ideas about a right to personal space to be challenged.
Anyway, we survived our extreme rafting adventure, spent a couple more days in Kerala, and then began to plan our next move…
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Lorraine
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So excited for you!
Hey guys - just thought I would drop you a line to let you know how excited I am for you and your adventures. Thanks so much for the informative updates. Never have I learned so much from someone else's travels! That's awesome! Can't wait to see ALL the pictures and hear ALL the stories when I see you next!