day14

Day 14: The Ladies bedchamber

Standing outside the gate of our rest house waiting for Nick to finish his morning ritual, I was watching the kids play their morning cricket matches as I spoke to a couple of French travellers who were waiting to be picked up. They were about to go on the backwater tour we had done the day previous. I did not say too much about the backwater trip, but assured them that it was well worth doing. They went off happy and I was sure they would not be disappointed.

I went into a little shop to look for a cushion cover that I had seen framed and hanging on the wall in our room. This was an embroidered elephant that I thought looked really good.
The shopkeeper said that he had just the thing and started to pull out lots off similar covers with animals on, but not the one I wanted, they were either to big, to small or the wrong colour. " I know I've got them" the shopkeeper said frantically sifting through hundreds of the things, "no problem" I said, "I'll call back after breakfast to see if you have found one"
"OK" said the shopkeeper as I left.

Something was wrong, he had not tried to keep me in the shop until he had found what he was looking for, nor had he tried to sell me anything else! It just felt a little weird walking out of the shop hassle free, so much so that I did go back only to be disappointed, as he had not found what I wanted. And again he did not try to sell me anything else, just apologised for wasting my time?

Now if only all shopkeepers were like that, they would probably do a roaring trade from me, as I like to roam around at leisure and pick what I like without having one thing after another pointed out to me.

I must just get back to the scams that people use to extract every rupee they possibly can out of you. While I was looking through the various bits of paper that I had kept from this trip, I came across the receipt for the prepaid taxi we took on our arrival in Madras.
In the sundry column is a charge of 15 rupees for luggage at 3 rupees per item. We only had two rucksacks between us!

Pineapple and banana pancakes was to be our breakfast this morning, eaten in one of the little local restaurants around the back streets, again it was not to bad and gave us no reason for complaint.
I checked my e-mail again this morning and received further information from Tony, my brother. He would not now be in Madras until the following week due to other commitments? Hard life being a jet-setting businessman isn't it!

Well at least I did not have to worry about making that connection in a very large city with millions of people, although I dare say it would have been easy enough, I'm sure there would have been plenty of people willing to assist me should I have encountered any problems, and probably 99.9% of them would have been smiling rickshaw drivers.
By now you will have got the handle of these rickshaw wallahs. Drivers who claim to know every single restaurant, hotel, station, airport, road, and pothole! Or come to that any place you care to mention in the world they will know the way there.

Edwin was sitting there waiting for us in his small version of the Pope mobile when we returned from breakfast. First off this morning we went to the Santa Cruz Basilica church, which was no more than 300 metres away across the parade ground, but we had to follow the road, which made the journey all of 500 metres.

Built in 1902 the Santa Cruz Basilica church is a very large and impressive building that looks out of place in its surroundings. The cavernous interior is covered in the most eye catching pastel colours, and adorned with religious paintings and icons of every description. The first church was originally on this site around the 16th century having been built by the Portuguese, only to be destroyed by the British around 1795.
Built gain in 1902 by the local community the church was given the status of Basilica in 1984.

Next we went to the Indo-Portuguese museum situated in the grounds of the local Catholic Bishops house. There was not too much of interest here in this the most modern building in Fort Cochin, which houses mostly vestments, silver crosses, statues and other icons preserving the heritage of the Catholic community from around the Cochin diocese.

To give Edwin credit he was trying to make the trip as interesting as possible for us, taking us next to the Mattancherry Palace, another Portuguese structure built in 1555 and presented to the then Raja of Cochin, Veera Kerala Varma (1537-61).
The Portuguese as a gesture of goodwill, not to mention the fact that it helped them secure trading privileges, did this.

Known locally as the Dutch Palace after restorations carried out by them in 1663, the two-storey building is a quadrangular shape, which is surrounded by a courtyard that also houses a Hindu Temple.
On the first floor can be found the Rajas Coronation hall where there are dresses, turbans, portrait oil paintings and palanquins of the former Rajas on display, along with a collection of murals which depict scenes of various legends connected to the deities Vishnu, Shiva, Krishna and Kumara.

In the Ladies bedchamber situated downstairs is a large mural, which depicts Krishna engaging in foreplay with eight milkmaids, he is using all his six hands and two feet. And let's be honest if you can get eight milkmaids to join you in some fun and games, you are going to need as many hands as possible to reap the full benefit!
And one more thing! Why did the Raja have this mural painted in the ladies bedchamber? I wonder if it was intended to stimulate the ladies in some way, or perhaps just to give instructions to them?
There were a good few tourists here all looking intently at the various murals that had faded considerably over the years; most were gathered around tour guides who were explaining the meanings. I would have liked to stop and hear their explanation of the milkmaid mural.

Apart from the wooden Chinese fishing structures, the local fishermen also use the more conventional form of catching fish with nets, thrown over from the sides of boats out in the Lakshadweep Sea. They then land the catch at the Cochi quayside a little way up along the harbour.

We took a visit here to see the catch being off loaded. The fishermen put the catch into large wicker baskets where it was then packed with ice and sold on.

Traders were coming and going, buying fish by the basket load, they were ferrying the baskets on the backs of their small motorbikes and cycles to and from the local communities. The fish here were mostly the smaller sprat and anchovy types that were used mainly to ground down into pastes.

Edwin told us that because the fish here were so small they would not be much good for anything except soups and pastes, which were very popular with the poorer people, especially those who were unable to afford the larger fish that were being sold by the fish mongers who were located up by the Chinese nets along the beach.

Edwin was pointing out the dolphins that were swimming a little way out beyond the fishing nets, as we sat drinking some cokes and enjoying the warm sunshine in the small square by the beach. He told us that the local fishermen were no longer allowed to catch them, due to their dwindling numbers.
I imagined that if I had to eat dolphin I would get a mental picture of Flipper, which would surely put me off. Much for the same as the reason I've never eaten venison, how could anyone eat deer meat after seeing Bambi as a kid?

Offered a cigarette Edwin accepted, but kept it hidden out of sight under the table. "Why are you doing that" I asked him. He told us that there had recently been a law passed which forbids people from smoking in public, and that if seen by a policeman he would receive an on the spot fine. He went on to say that it was OK for us tourists to smoke, but not the local people.

A lot of these on the spot fines imposed by police officers never go any further than their own pockets. This new smoking law was just another way to earn a backhander according to Edwin. He said that recently the police had been turned down on a pay rise, then this new law was introduced as a backhanded wage rise to soften that blow for them, thus allowing them another means of picking up extra cash!
It all seemed a little paranoid to me, but yet something I can well believe happens in a land where if you are prepared to pay the going price, you can get virtually anything you want. I wonder how much it would cost to hire eight milkmaids?

A very well spoken street hawker approached us selling a little wooden carved snake that had a small pin in it's mouth, which bit your finger when you pressed it's tail. All very tacky, but a fun     little thing none the less.
He picked the wrong person in Nick to try and sell his wares to. There then ensued a very comical conversation between the pair of them. The hawker wanted 200 rupees for his snake, Nick offered him 10 to start!
A couple of local lads gathered round to watch the haggling process, with the hawker slowly coming down in price each time and Nick not budging from his original offer. The onlookers were breaking out into fits of laughter at some of the comments being made from both parties.
Of course Nick did not really want one of these wooden snakes, but merely wanted the fun of bartering with the man, who to be fair to him, knew he was asking well over the top. The well-spoken hawker never lost his composure once and went along with the joke for the best part of ten minutes, before finally conceding that he would not make a sale, no matter what he was asking for it.

A simple "No thank you" never seems to suffice, you have to explain your reasons for not wanting anything. It really does make you wonder just exactly which part of the word "No" do these people not understand?

As I said before about the silver tout and shirt maker in Madurai, Indian men make great salesmen and simply refuse to take No for an answer. You are trying to keep your cool and they are trying to brow beat you into submission, it is a great test of your resolve.

It is fair to say that these people see us as rich people, simply because we are there in the country, having journeyed great distances, from foreign lands in airplanes that are not cheap to travel on.

It is hard to argue that you are not a rich man, because no matter how poor we might think we are, compared to a lot of people here, we are millionaires. What must they think when they see us eat in the more up market restaraunts, drinking designer water from fancy bottles. What's wrong with the stuff they pump out of the ground. It can be very difficult to explain your reasons to people who have so very little, but are willing to share it with you, yet we prefer to spend all that money on things they can only dream about!

Sometimes you can feel real empathy with these people, but the cynic inside you says they are trying to scam you, thus you tend to try and dissociate yourself from it all, with as much dignity as you can muster.
A pen and some sweets will not alleviate the problems for a starving child, neither will a few rupees!
I guess it's true what Nick says, he thinks that if we really cared that much we would not go there in the first place, instead, he thinks we should donate the money we would have spent on airfares and such like and stay at home.

You can't really argue his point, but I like to think that we are at least bringing some money into their economy through tourism, which, after all, we can select where and with who we spend it. Donations go to a larger body, and not individuals, and just how much of this money actually filters down is a major cause for concern, especially in the supposedly third world countries where corruption is known to be rife.

We can all beat ourselves up over these issues, but at the end of the day we have to go with what makes us feel comfortable, rightly or wrongly.

We had made some more promises, like you do! to a couple of boys who were out touting on our first day here in Cochin, So had no choice when we bumped into them while walking around, but to go into the little emporium at the bottom of Quiros Street.   No problems here as the owner was not too pushy and let us walk around at our leisure, Nick even bought something, and so everyone was happy.
It would seem that the shopkeepers of Fort Cochin are a little more laid back than everywhere else.

Our bags had to be out of the room by 12, although we were not leaving until 2 p.m. when we would catch our pre booked taxi out to the airport. Leaving our luggage in the reception we headed back to the Kathakali restaurant for some lunch.

Here we sat looking out onto the beach where a couple of local men were making repairs to the hull of their boat. A Kingfisher was sat in a tree only a few feet from our table and causing quite a stir amongst the group of German tourists sitting a few feet away. As soon as they jumped up with their cameras flashing away, he was gone! Spoiling the whole ambiance of moment.

Around the restaurant were at least four signs saying quite clearly no smoking, but Germans being their usual obnoxious selves with plenty of bad attitude, smoked constantly, with total disregard of the signs and the other diners!
I really wanted to say something to them, but it's just not worth the hassle with these arrogant people, who feel they are that much better then everyone else.

I was really glad that this was the only place we had come across one of these tour groups, who like the safety and comfort of travelling in large numbers, they think they can treat the waiters and everyone else doing them a service like shit. In fact I felt quite smug knowing that these people will have been ripped off something rotten. They certainly would not have experienced the real India, all they would have seen was what the brochure had to offer in glossy pictures. And then hopefully, they would have paid at least three or four times more than a backpacker for only half the experience that is India.

Our driver out to the airport was a steady old boy who was not going to be rushed, he took his time and got us there in one piece.
Airport security is taken very seriously in India and Cochi was no different from anywhere else, as we had to go through four different checks before being allowed on the plane. This was it, we were now on the last leg of our trip. In one hour we would be back to where we had started 15 days previously, not as much fun, but a hell of a lot quicker.

The flight was uneventful with there only being around thirty people on the plane, we sat right at the front bulkhead to give us more leg room, not that you really need it on a flight only lasting an hour.
As soon as we were in the air the stewardesses started handing out the in-flight meals, this consisted of a curried spring roll, cheese sandwich, Swiss roll, mango juice and a cup of tea. A veritable feast no less.
An hour on a plane is nothing, no sooner had we finished our little picnic then the fasten seat belt sign was switched on in preparation for our landing.

Here we were back in Chennai, India's fourth largest city with a population of just under six million people. Chennai is still an important trade port and the main part of the city covers an area of approx 70 sq km. Chennai is situated on the eastern coast, which made it a convenient place for the many foreign traders who started to arrive in the mid 16th century. The foreigners first started to arrive in the form of the Dutch and Chinese, then the British, who arrived to set up a base here for the newly formed British East India company, this after refusing to pay the inflated prices for the spices they formerly bought from the Dutch.
The rest as they say is history, with the British staying around for the next couple of hundred years and stamping their influence on this part of the country.

Chennai still has many buildings to remind one of the time spent here by the British, with the most notable being Fort St George built by the East India company, having undergone many changes since then the buildings still house the secretariat and the Legislative Assembly. The area around this fort is still known today as George Town. Also along with the fort there are museums and churches with many reminders of the various influences of the former colonial days gone by.

The Indian film industry is now firmly based in Chennai, boasting bigger and better studios than those in Mumbai (Bombay) the home of Bollywood movies. It is estimated that over three hundred movies a year are produced here in the city. Given a longer stay in the city it might well have been worth visiting the studios, but time was not on our side.
I can't really say too much about the city as we spent no time here on our arrival, and were only planning to spend one night here on our way home.

This was our second landing at Chennai (Madras) airport in the space of two weeks, so we knew the form and headed straight to the pre-paid taxi booth.
The driver of the taxi we were allocated looked as though he was about 85 years old, but at a push I suppose he could have passed for 80! It's not very often you get a driver who is older than the car he's driving, but here he was. A small skinny man with shocking black greasy hair that looked as though it was badly in need of a good wash, and while he was at it he could throw his shirt in as well.
This hyper active little old man had a very basic rule to his driving, "get out of my way or I'll kill you", seems about the best way to sum it up.

It was evening rush hour, if there is such a thing. Buses laden with passengers fought for every spare inch of road with the cars, cyclists and the odd bullock cart as we made our way into the heart of the city.
Our driver had his own agenda and went anywhere he liked with total disregard for everyone, even taking on the big buses that don't give an inch. It was kind of nice to be back in the mayhem of a big city after our very relaxed and sedate trip around the coast of Tamil Nadu and backwaters of Kerala. The smell and heat coming through the open window was a reminder of the pollution that we had not experienced so much on this trip. I tried the old trick of giving the driver a cigarette in the hope he might calm down a bit.
He didn't!

The Hotel Ranjith was the place that Vijay had recommended to us back in Alleppey, from the outside it did not look to bad. Nick went up to have a look at one of the rooms while I sat downstairs in the lobby.

I told the manager that Vijay had recommended we come here; he said he did not know anybody called Vijay who had worked there. Just as well really as when Nick came down he said the room was a dump, and definitely not worth the 1400 rupees a night they wanted for it.

We had already made a backup second choice from the Lonely planet guide, so went there. The New Woodlands Hotel was a much better proposition with the rooms costing the same, but being ten times better.
The room we got was fully air conditioned with new furniture and freshly painted walls, nice bathroom, TV and fridge. What more could we ask for.
This was a big city hotel with well over a hundred rooms, it even had an indoor swimming pool and gym!


Attached to the hotel were three large banqueting suites that were in use when we arrived with wedding receptions going on. They were a bit noisy, but would not keep us awake as our room was well away from that area.
After a quick wash and change we went to the hotel restaurant for our evening meal, which was a little overpriced and not really that good. Nick did not fancy a walk in the dark, so went back to the room to watch the Masters golf on TV. I was about as interested in watching golf as I was in buying a little wooden snake that bit your finger when you pushed it's tail.

I said to Nick I would just take a look around outside the local area around the hotel before going to bed.
Outside the hotel was surprisingly quite, apart from the long queue of rickshaws all-willing to take me anywhere I wanted to go. "I'm only going for a short walk" I said to a driver, "I'll take you" he said.
"It won't be a short walk then will it?" I replied.
I wanted to go back to the hotel as I was totally shagged out and could not handle the hassle of all the rickshaw drivers at the moment! I moved away from the large gathering and went to the rickshaw stood on its own a little way from the entrance, here I arranged with a young driver to pick us up the following morning and give us the guided tour.

"Do you see that large sign across the road" said the rickshaw driver pointing with his finger.
"Yes I see it"
"I will be waiting there for you when you come out in the morning"
"Right, I'll see you there about 9.a.m."
"OK sir, you come when you are ready, I will be waiting for you"

The air conditioning made the room seem cold and we had to turn it down a bit, even going so far as to sleep with the blankets over us to keep out the chill we felt. This was a novelty after two weeks of sleeping in sweltering heat with nothing more than a single sheet over us.