Dear India. Are you trying to tell us something?

We saw a female Tuk tuk driver, had a massage, spent an evening at the beach (Thank you Satheesh and Monsoor for the last few days, you made Cochin greater), had a wonderful dinner with our hostel manager (sweet Babu), visited an orphanage and got showed around one of the most interesting projects in Kerala… in my modest opinion 😉

We left Cochin on saturday morning, sad to leave our friends but excited about new adventures. Especially looking forward to a few days in the beautiful mountain landscapes of Wayanad where we had booked a hut outside a small town called Meenangadi.

We started our travels at 8.00. It was hot as **** but what else is new. We met a couple of nice people on the train though. One who gave us interesting book tips and one who silently shared his crackers and India-nodded shyly. We had lunch on banana leaves in Calicut and the entire staff stared at us if we were animals at the zoo. Perhaps because we were the only westerners in there or perhaps because they’d never seen women as white as us eating with our hands. Who knows…We called our hostel for the evening to confirm our booking, everything sounded fine.

That evening we arrived, tired and dusty after spending the entire afternoon on a lovely, windy, local bus, watching the mountains, monkeys and happily bewildered looks on local faces. The guy at the hostel counter barely spoke english but still managed to be extremely unpleasant. He took no account of the fact that we had called earlier to confirm that everything was in order, and insisted that we had booked a rathole which we clearly stated that he would never get us to stay in. After a while of annoyance, double checking anything that we could find, insisting on him calling his manager, planning to hunt for a new hostel, getting him to give us another room for the same price and refusing to let him hold our passports – we were anything but accommodating – we finally checked in and joined Shamnad and Rupesh, whom had been dragged in to mediate, for dinner (Which we by the way forgot to pay them back for… thanks guys!).

Anyway, we slept well, had a lovely morning walk in the beautiful surroundings, Ellen participated (somewhat reluctantly) in a photosession for the locals and we left for Mysore before noon. So much for our relaxing weekend in the mountains.

The staring had now continued for 24 hours, all the way from Calicut to Mysore. Taking local busses with our giant backpacks, it must have been a sight for sore eyes. And sore we were. We took an atrociously overpriced Rickshaw to Gokulum (apparently a yoga hub in Mysore). And had lunch at a cafe full of yoga teacher trainees. talked to some people, got some tips, walked around and got a number for a guy renting out an apartment. Our bad fortune had finally turned! …or had it now?

Within a few hours of our arrival in Gokulum, we had rented an apartment, gotten pickpocketed in the same place and an hour later, nearly robbed by a guy on a moped (I don’t think he understood swedish, but I’m guessing that the message went through anyway *growl*)… Aaand drenched a mobile in oil. A big thank you to Ranjina, the international mama, for making our evening easier and putting a smile on our faces again.

Today we have spent the day doing laundry, talking to fellow travellers, studied and experienced an assassination attempt by a shard of glass in Ellen’s lunch.

Is this a sign? Should we leave Gokulum?

To be continued.

Now we’re talking!

For the last few days we have found our flow. We have been studying a lot despite the (nice but exhausting) heat and the lack of wifi. This wonderful manager/tuc tuc driver has helped us with everything from finding appropriately traditional clothing, to driving us around looking for schools in his home town.

Tomorrow we will focus on the questionnaires, thursday we will meet with 68 students and between friday and monday we have booked 6 interviews.

We will try to post more often… if the wifi keeps working.

Namaste

Slow living

Cochin is lovely.

Yesterday we started studying, we managed to squeesze in 4 hours of reading between the amazingly interesting conversations that we tend to have with the locals and travellers we’re meeting in the hostel, in coffee shops and in the street. These encounters, have inspired us to stay in Cochin for a while longer.

Today we finished our three day Ayurvedic treatment. I’m bruised… And SO happy! The jet lag is starting to wear off and we managed 5 hours of studies today, so that’s a win. The reading is slow going. We are blaming it on the heat, but it could just as easily be all the yoga or that we’ve started to adopt an Indian mindset.

We have noticed that the interest in environmental issues is greater than we thought here in Kerala. Take for example Afsal, whom we met while having breakfast. In his encounters with westerners, he was inspired to start a project to teach environmentally friendly behavior to school children. He feels that it is too late to do change the behavior of his generation, so he’s focusing on the next one. People here have such strong social networks and many really want to make a difference, even though the government is not making it easy…

Like our hostel manager Babu says “In India, anything is possible.”

Arrival

We started this day changing flights in Doha, having breakfast/dinner at 4am and watching the most amazing sunrise from above the clouds.

We proceeded to land in Cochin after a few hours half-assed sleep and spent about two hours in a taxi. When we finally arrived at our hostel (located on the street above), we were totally exhausted. We have, however, managed the jetlag pretty well and since this morning (which felt like evening) and now -11.30 PM local time- (which also feels like evening); eaten really nice Keralan food, praised whatever deity we could think of for the AC, walked around the beautiful Pattalam area, seen the ocean, had chai masala, and practiced yoga with the hostel manager.

Sweet dreams, everybody!

/Sara