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Sunday, February 20: Update Dispatch February
10 Cochin (2457) to Thalasseri (2731) for a total of 274 km 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 pm 1 major stop (2 hrs?) for a festival in a tiny village near Guruvayoor. Bleary-eyed, I stay awake in my modern hotel room to watch the end of an incipid American western on television. Normally I object to television, but I am homesick and CNN just won't do it for me now. I have been restless this past week, a bit starved for company. I remember now that this mood hits me about a month into a trip. I miss Michael, our San Francisco apartment, Italian food, real coffee. But soon I'll be in Goa with friends Nikki and Swamiji William from San Francisco, and Goa Gil and Arianne, who have made winter homes in Goa for many years now. In addition my friend Dianna and her daughter will come by for a few days during a fabric buying blitz for their apparel business, and another girlfriend, Marcia, has decided to come and ride with me (pillion) to Badami, Hampi, Mysore, Bangalore, and back to Madras. It'll be nice to have her company. And the first time I've traveled with a partner. I can't wait to get to Anjuna Beach. It's all I think about! A Tour of Kerala Despite a nearly sleepless night, the riding continued to be satisfying today, and not tedious as I thought it might be when I started out in the damp chill of the tropical Kerala morning. Kerala, I have decided, is definitely the place to take a motorcycle tour. Forget Tamil Nadu. The drivers are crazy and the animals aren't tethered. Keralans at least have the sense to be horrified at Tamil Nadu's dangerous roads and drivers. But then, there is a bit of race-classism going on here, too. "They're uneducated," they say about the Tamils, and cite Kerala's 95% literacy rate. I don't think so. Maybe 95% of Keralan's can write their names and addresses, but I've found that it often doesn't mean much more than that. Part of the reason is the disparity of their education. Their native language is spoken at home, English and Hindi are learned at school. Maybe they don't have the bandwidth to learn any of them well. As far as common sense, however, it's true that, unlike in Tamil Nadu (and this is just a casual experiencial assessment on my part) Keralans seem to be aware that they do have some control over their destiny, whereas in Tamil Nadu they kind of just leave it all up to the gods. Speaking of gods, there's a good mix of religions here, and I've heard more than one person brag that here, unlike in the north, all the religous groups get along fine. There is a heavy Christian element (from the Portuguese and now, from the Christian missionaries who are building schools), Hindism is also common, and Muslims are to be seen everywhere in the black veiled costumes of the women, and the white caps of the men. Catholic schoolgirls walk to school in navy pinafores and crisp white shirts, their hair decorated with red flowers all in the same fashion, past women in bright saris of parrot green, red, yellow, orange. Crosses loom and the moon and star and even the looming Dravidian towers all pierce the sky, in their turn. So if you're going to take a motorcycle ride through India, here's what I recommend. Fly into Trivandrum and spend a few days in Kovolam or Varkala at the beach getting used to the climate and the traffic. Ride in to Quilon (Kollam) and put the bike on a backwaters tour boat from Quilon to Alleppy. Only one, maybe two max, can get into one boat. (Bikes, that is.) Stay the night anywhere in Alleppy and get up early the next morning to ride to Thekkady, which is the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary in the mountains. From Alleppy follow the signs to Changacherry (Changanassery), then Mundakayam. The road is in good shape (at least now) and you'll be following some canals where you'll a chance to see some more of the placid river life. From Changacherry the road to Kumily (which is Thekkady/Periyar) is pretty well marked, and you'll start climbing through heavily treed forest and eventually, jungle. The road is still good, but watch out for the buses and the cows, and pull over at one or another of the clusters of shops selling bananas and coffee or chai, and give yourself and the bike a rest. In Kumily I'd recommend staying at the Coffee Inn (around 200 rs/night), near the entrance to Thekkady (Thekkady is Periyar Sanctuary). They have a nice quiet outdoor patio for meals and just hanging out. But if you want a real trekking vibe, quiet, and convenient to the lake, stay at the Periyar House in Thekkady (600 rs/night. Price includes excellent breakfast and dinner buffets.) Spend a day or two, take the walks and the boat rides, or if you really want to see animals, arrange for a private (not a park) guide or to stay the night in a hide. It's pretty much guaranteed that you won't see tigers, which is what the park is famous for. They're extremely elusive creatures. But there are plenty of elephants, boars, Sambar deer, monkeys, exotic squirrels and iguana. Oh. And leeches. Wear thick socks. Have a leisurely breakfast and follow the signs to Munnar and prepare for some of the most breathtaking scenery of your life. To see this scenery, of course, you are at times taking your life into your hands. I enjoyed this road during a bus and truck strike. I absolutely can not imagine sharing parts of this road with buses and trucks. The most dangerous stretch includes a potential fall literally thousands of meters straight down into misty oblivion. I met nothing bigger than a compact car, and even that nearly gave me heart failure. Sorry, I would have taken a photo but I couldn't manage it. But was it worth it? Definitely. I stopped to look out over the deepest valley I've ever seen. Into mountainscape with flavors of the Great Smokeys, the French Alps, and Jamaica's Blue Mountains combined. Past this rugged, unmanageable landscape, there are miles and miles of beautifully cultivated hills and mountainsides that are the famous tea plantations of Munnar and the fallen red petals of the Flame of the Forest (Palas) tree are scattered onto the road. The roads are not terrible, besides some unmarked hairpin turns (including one that flies up a hidden 30% grade and caught me out in too high a gear. I managed to brake, back down, and start again in first. The only other time I remember having to do such a thing was in Monaco.) Tea plantations, wild rocky mountains, waterfalls. All pretty idylic. I didn't stay in Munnar, but most people do and I would recommend it. But at the time I was having too much fun riding with the roads clear of large vehicles due to the strike. So I took advantage of their absence and continued straight back to the coast to the large town of Kochi (Cochin). To get to Fort Cochin, the pretty island on the coast, you have to navigate the gauntlet of Ernakulam, a large, busy town plagued with power outages and traffic jams. You pretty much just ride straight into town and then at the end where it meets the water turn left. Then you'll see a bridge over to an island, take a right on that. But that's not the island, it's the next one... just follow the major traffic. Kind of exhausting at the end of a day of hard riding, but once in Fort Cochin things are pretty cool again. There's a picturesque beach with the some Chinese fishing nets you saw on the rivers during the backwaters tour, there's a massive European-style basilica with convent and a Catholic girls school. There's Jewtown with cramped little streets full of antiques, plus a sweet little synagogue. A palace (that was closed when I was there) has some of the most renowned murals in India, including one of blue Krishna with eight arms busy in foreplay "with eight happy cowgirls." Krishna is a popular guy, even now. There are lots of travelers here, too, some bumbling about on package tours from England but plenty who are traveling independently, and Fort Cochin becomes sort of a gathering spot for trading information. Cochin also has the advantage of having an Enfield dealer in town. You can buy a 350 cc Bullet for around 50K rs new, and drive it away if you like, or you can get yours serviced, which I would recommend because they have a really excellent workshop there. Patience was in great shape when I left this morning for Mangalore. I kind of knew I wouldn't actually get to Mangalore. It's over 400 km away. But I just started north on the extreme coast road (not the highway) and just before Vadakkekara was on a tiny little ferryboat over to the other penninsula. A Festival Near Guruvayoor I spotted three elephants by the side of the road surrounded by people banging drums and blowing horns. I pulled over the take a photo but they started on a procession down a side road. I followed, and it turned out that they were going to a festival. It was unbelievable. They let me pass on the narrow road, right by the elephants feet in order to speed ahead to the temple grounds where there were food and drink stands, kids blowing up fireworks, men drinking whisky, and little girls all made up in heavy festival eyeliner. The elephants stood by while group after group after group of musicians drummed and blew their hearts out in some of the most amazingly intense drumming performances I have ever witnessed. I was able to take lots of photos and even record some of the music. That couple of hours was some of the most fun I've had so far in India. I taped and photographed to my hearts content, and then the men started getting a little too drunk and so I took off. (Kind of reminded me of the chili cookout in Lukenbach during American Borders.) The road soon turned into a lovely wide (by Indian standards) smooth highway. Aside from the maniacal buses constantly blowing their air horns up your exhaust pipe, most traffic is pretty considerate and it wasn't terribly stressful, especially with all the bridges again showing a slice of river life. A couple of times I ducked down side roads toward the coast and was rewarded by canals and boats and fishermen and coconut plantations and some of the most pristine beaches I've ever seen. One, north of Calicut, was especially nice, and I asked around about lodging but there wasn't even so much as a restaurant for 20 kilometers. I might recommend that you, if you go, take a little tent and sleeping pad with you, so you can take advantage of these kinds of opportunities. Now I am in Thalasseri, a busy but friendly town, rather noisy, too, but its only a stopover and I'll get up early again in the morning to be on my way through Mangalore, and hopefully make it to Gokarn by tomorrow afternoon. Met some more Israli bikers on Enfields covered with 60's style flower-power stickers plastered all over the tank and panniers. I guess I'm getting close to Goa. Gokarn, Valentine's Day Arrival in Gokarn just before sunset to see the most concentrated gathering of International Hippies since Varkala. These hippies are a bit more serious, though, hiking a half hour over old lava beds to other beaches, Ohm Beach, Paradise Beach, to sleep in the sand and wake up to bananas and bong hits before some swimming and maybe a drumming session before lunchtime. They live for weeks this way, in 20 rupee a night huts and 10 rupee a day meals, perfecting their tans and their dreadlocks, stretching their budget for one more day of doing nothing. One more week. The fishermen make a few bucks ferrying them back and forth to the main beach for supplies and the farmers have put up more grass shacks and hammock supports. Business is good. Once an idyllic hideaway for those in the know, the place is now pretty trashed. Plastic water bottles, cigarette packs, plastic bags, litter the rocks on the beach. Too bad. It is an incredibly beautiful spot. "The new Goa," they say, but now there must be a new Gokarn because it's definitely passe. Peter and Katia, a Slovanian couple I met at sunset were back after a 3 year lapse. They weren't pleased with the developments there. "A Dutch couple on bicycles had their air pumps and water bottles ripped off," Katia told me. "When we were here before we were only two of a dozen white people spread out on the four different beaches, and we lived in rooms of the fishermen for almost nothing, but now they are all greedy and some are angry about opportunities they don't have," said Peter. "We must find someplace new." Where is the new place? Those who know aren't telling. Maybe on the island a kilometer out to sea. Maybe another 10 kilometers up the road. It would take some scouting. But I didn't come to India for a cheap beach, a private place to hang and get stoned. As much as I respect one's right to be who one needs to be at whatever stage of life one finds oneself, I don't need to hang around to witness it. Am I getting old and cranky? Well, I'm headed to the land of old and cranky - Anjuna Beach, where old and cranky hippies still live, some doing the things that they used to do when they were young and cranky. We'll see. Marcia and I have been kidnapped and taken to a secret goddess temple a days drive from Goa by my friends Nikki and Swamiji. It was a lovely experience, and I will report on it later, with photos, but my PowerBook power supply got fried by a humongous surge and it won't be fixed a week from now in Bangalore. Meantime, I will keep you as up to date as possible via the mailing list (to sign up go to the CONTACT area) and these dispatches. First thing in the morning we're off to Badami, an ancient site where temples have been carved into caves. Then to Hampi, Bangalore, and back to Madras!
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