Coconuts, Cows, Mosquitoes & Geckos

Each time I had the urge to blog, it was impossible to get to a computer, or to get to one with an internet connection at least. In India, there was so much to tell, but no bloody internet anywhere, and even when there was internet, I was charged an arm and a leg for it and would have been foolish to do anything other than check my email and spy on friends on facebook. The problem now though is that I possess the memory of a gold fish, and have been in hibernation for the last 3 days doing nothing but watching Friends and Frasier re-runs and my X-Factor (Go Rhydian!) recordings over and over again, so my recollection of events might be somewhat... ummm... warped.

One thing I remember wanting to talk about was the "animal situation" in India. As one who hails from the tropics, I am not unfamiliar with mosquitoes, neither am I unfamiliar with a sighting or two of goats or cows in allegedly 'urban' areas. What I am unfamiliar with though, is fearless animals, animals who don't give a shit (or a rat's ass) about humans. Mosquitoes that dive nose-first into your eyes when you are wide awake and staring right at them, dogs that attempt to cross the road without looking left or right, goats that refuse to heed to a driver's loud horns, crows that steal food from restaurant tables in broad daylight, pigeons that quench their thirst in swimming pools, and cows that do whatever the hell they want whenever they bloody well want to. The cows were unbelievable! Not only did they take strolls on busy roads in city centres, they took up prime car-space on the motorway. And on narrow country roads, they wouldn't budge, not even when they were hit by the hard, metal body of a car. Slowly, we grew accustomed to the following sounds: car door + cow trunk (oomp), car door + cow horn (boonp), and car door + cow snout (donk): neither of which was very pleasant.

In Kerala, farm animals were not as prevalent, perhaps because fish, crab and lobsters ruled the streets in that region. Oh and coconuts too! Kera La means "land of coconuts" and my goodness there were coconut trees everywhere! I was about 10 the last time I drank from a coconut - my brother and I begged our mallam to climb one of the trees in our backyard. He hacked at it with his huge dagger/sword thing, we stuck 2 straws in it, and after one or two slurps, our time was up. In Kerala though, coconuts are different. It took me TWO HOURS (slurp, pause, slurp, gasp, slurp, hold stomach to stop the swishing, slurp) to drain the coconut I was given, and after that I decided I was done. My struggle with the coconut was on a houseboat in the middle of nowhere, and I had nothing else to do, which was why I kept it up.

Gosh... the houseboat!! Yet another thing I wanted to talk about.

To get to the houseboat, we drove from Kochi to Alleppey, and into a yard with very exotic-looking bamboo houseboats. Within 5 minutes, our luggage was on board and we were off. The crew introduced themselves - there were 3, the driver, the engine-master, and the chef (who was skinny - that we took as a good sign). We were out in open water, on the backwaters of Alleppey, and it was beautiful, breathtaking in fact. There was nothing around but water, it was completely silent. I made a note in the sacred 'Where To Go On Honeymoon' notepad that I keep in my (insane) mind, (and am ashamed to say make regular amendments to). 15 minutes later though, 'Houseboat on the Backwaters of Alleppey' was scrubbed right off the list! There was nothing to do on the bloody boat! There was no way I could get online (duh!), the 3 books I had brought on board were non-fiction (dull), in French (I wasn't in the mood), and in pre-1890 French (hello?) and I was starting to freak out. Zozo on the other hand was ensconced in 'The God of Small Things' and I was kicking myself for having recommended it to her, as she had subsequently lost all interest in speaking to me. So I sat there, on the boat, watching the beautiful lake and the beautiful birds and the beautiful multi-coloured dragonflies go by, sipping my coconut and twiddling my thumbs.

We pulled into a narrow stream for lunch, I bargained with 2 fishermen who rowed up to the boat to sell langoustines, we set sail again, and then the SUN came out. By evening, I was blacker than night (the boat was shaded so I don't get how it happened), my allergies had kicked in (I am either allergic to nature/ water/ natural water because they showed up unannounced 2 days before when we swam under a waterfall in Kochi) and there were mosquitoes and geckos everywhere. It was incredible! The sun went down, we sat in the armchairs, and one by one, mosquitoes appeared, and as they did, so did the geckos. The highlight was when a gecko lost its balance mid tongue-stretch, and dropped onto Zozo's chair, which sent her flying and screaming and brought all of our 3-man crew running to apprehend the danger. Once dinner was over though (think sweaty, sticky, harassed Bitchy eating the most delicious langoustines ever with a drippy drippy nose! Yuck! Yum! Yuck!) we locked ourselves in our bedroom where thankfully we had air-conditioning, and then shivered all night long (because the sheets were too thin).

I should write a movie script about my time in India - it would put Ben Stiller and Will Ferrell to shame! It was so bloody funny! I'm afraid my re-telling of it hasn't painted quite as funny a picture as I would've liked. I want to write about Mumbai next, but I am going to stop here because this post is already very long and very dull. I seem to have lost my blogger's mojo!

Crap! Xxx

P.S. Both photographs are mine. I am no longer a pilferer (I don't think this word exists) of images from google!