Kicking Off in Kerala…continued

Having a few technical difficulties with WordPress, which overall is better than having real problems.

I last mentioned that the political election fever pitch it raising and even on the waterways boats  with flags and loudspeakers went past.  This is the last day that they can do it.

We later found  out when we reached Kochi that they take lots of additional steps to ensure the election goes smoothly. One of them being that alcohol is banned everywhere for 48 hours, until 6pm on the 9th April. Some of this is again linked to bribery, to stop alcohol being a leverage with some. Apparantly candidates previouslywould let alcohol flow freely and this would skew votes. I don’t think even if I was bribed with a whole brewery I would vote for reform.  Another slant on this is that the illegal production of alcohol is big business, with no legatimate ways of getting alcohol, the illegal kind flies off the ‘shelves’ and this provides last minute funds for candidates. Whatever the reason I felt sad that we couldn’t have a cold beer when we arrived in Kochi. Added to  that because of all the rallies there was one detour after another, adding to the journey time by an hour.

Param picked us up after the boat ride. It had been a great experience and despite the large dinner, we still had space for spicy fried bananas and coffee!

We don’t know what Param did over all the time we were  on the boat. Initially  we thought he had quite a bit  of English, but it became obvious over the journey that it was quite limited He had a repetoire of the same phrases and words. He would continously point out temples, coconut trees, rice fields etc, then as we moved into Kerala it would be churches. Any  direct questions would be met with ‘yes, yes’, whatever the real answer could be. He was lovely though.

After the boat trip he wanted to stop off at a few more places on the way to Kochi.

Not far from where the boat trip was in Alappuzha, he stopped at Marari beach, golden sands and turbulent waves. Pristine and lined with coconut trees. I loved the juxtaposition of the cross and the flag, in many ways summing up this area!    

Param then stopped at another church. All churches for him were very famous. Everything for him was famous, all universities, schools etc etc. We said would stop as I was interested to look at the political rally, But by the time we got out of the car most of it had dispersed. I had always thought that this deep rooted religious identity was linked  to colonialism but it predates European influence. In Kerala alone they run 30,000 schools, hospitals etc.

Education is seen as the ticket out of poverty. But nowadays things are changing as the number of graduates is outweighing the number of job opportunities. The pressure to be the best of the best is huge.

Eventually we reached Kochi. So so different from the cities in Tamil Nadu.  Glitzy westernised shops, KFC, MacDonalds etc. Also as we moved further into Kerala there were other shifts, dogs on leads, vets, pet shops. 

We reached our place that we would call home for the next few days. Based in Princess Street, Fort Kochi, quite the place to be we later found out. 

Walton’s Homestay, a family run guest house. A Dutch house nearly 300 years old.The reception area doubles up as a library, which doubles up also as second hand book shop. It is quirky! 

We said our goodbyes  to Param, it felt sad.

Tired and hungry we ate at the first place we could find. A pizza restaurant, with a scooter inside and all things Italian, which was a bit incongruous.