Kochi-Kochi-Coo! (back dated to March 26)
The urgency with which the last post was hammered out and followed by a desperate search for a bathroom was precipitated, now that I reflect, by some suspicious watermelon juice an hour earlier. The keeper of the internet hole (calling it a cafe would be more generous than the word permits) said his bathroom was not very clean. My colon is too desperate to care much about that, but brain kicks in and asks if he has a bathroom in an unused guest room. He points me to one and I make a dash for it. A giant, scurry-some roach greets me by whizzing in circles on the floor and between my feet. Some odd noises come out of my mouth. But priorities are already fixed. While I am exceptionally grateful that this facility was available to me, I am hence even more grateful about the place I am staying in, a pristine haven of shining tiled floors and a bathroom so clean I am walking in it in bare feet. Thank you Jojie's homestay! Indeed, with two to three showers a day in the lovely bdthroom, to take the edge off the heat, I am the cleanest I've been all trip.
***
While walking back from the ferry station this evening, someone shouts from a van at me, "A black negro!". There is nothing to do but laugh. Somehow, this is oddly refreshing as a greeting as compared to "Korea!", or "Konichiwa!". I wonder if my tan is developing faster than I realize.
Black humour (heh) aside, there are many things about Kochi I am enjoying- the clean streets and quiet nights, for one. Most local dwellers are pretty nonplussed with foreign faces, so gawking is less prevalent, though in certain areas, like Jew Town (yes, it is actually called that. And why not? Nobody raises flak about Chinatown), hawkers are as ferocious as goats battling over who gets to eat the tin can.
Walking through areas like this, I feel like a piece of monetary meat, and sometimes meat meat. This is an energy that I will never mistake for anything else again. The only thing that has been working so far to ward it off is behaving like a total bitch. Looking in the eye hawkers who after trying to sell me things I don't want, try to get me to agree to meet them later, saying "No, not interested.", and walking away, pretending deafness to their protests of emotional injury.
Good practice for boundary setting.
***
To be frank, I have felt disappointed by the quality of my experiences here so far. But to be fair, I've not put a huge effort into making things happen. Huge efforts are hard to make in this climate. Often just being awake in this heat is enough to make you go to sleep. Two meals a day are more than enough (Udaipur friends who have seen my first and second breakfasts, lunch, pre-dinner and dinner dinner habits would be shocked), and transpiration has reached an all time high.
As the heat will only be getting heatier, it seems prudent to sketch up some loose plans to funnel me towards things more enjoyable than wandering aimlessly around Ernakulam in the midday sun, looking for "something interesting" while trying to convince myself that interesting must be just around the corner, and that this is not a huge waste of time and a fool's errand.
Backwaters tempt, as does kind of Ayurvedic pursuits, but I still have reservations from the last "Ayurvedic" treatment I had, which amongst other unsavory things involved my masseuse (male) pulling my underwear half way down my butt midway through the massage without telling me what he was doing. I would like to rinse the stinky taste in my mouth, so perhaps will give it another try and be more heeding of gut instincts this time.
Lastly, there is of course no obligation to stay in Kochi. Smaller towns, like the hillstation of Munnar, or the less populated beaches of Allepey are there. Going to a new place after not being so thrilled with the place you just tried is like picking another dish from the same menu where you had a meal you didn't really like. Takes some faith in believing that better is possible, and that even if the next thing is likewise not that great, you'll still survive to go to another restaurant.