watching the mists and mountains

some mornings you wake up to the mists, hugging close around the buildings, close around the mountainside, reducing all beyond this 10 yd circumference to conjecture, all hidden behind a veil of thick swirling white. i can hear the temple but i cannot see it, i can smell the trees but they are still beyond this block... tibetan flags shiver and horses stand garlanded in bells on the path. you hear these bells tinkling from somewhere beyond this veil, the whisper of voices, calling, and the whirr of car engines struggling against the steep incline.

other mornings up the hill you can walk back behind the school to look out on the mountains. beyond my forest of evergreen trees tall and straight as ship-masts standing out of the steep mountainside, beyond the green hills cut and cleaved, like roots thick gnarled and old of trees whose trunks whose bodies have long been cut away, beyond these when the mist finally rises you see them, those mountains of ice coming out of the clouds like some half-magical confection, ridges points pricks and long faces of white and gray. immense and impossible.

these october days by morning i wake up to a crystal clear sky, a vivid blue. every day there they are, the himalayas. i sit there an hour every day just trying to take the idea in. i don't know why it seems so impossible, unimaginable, uncomprehendable. why i have this obsessive need to trace their lines into my mind.

then by night in the mists and dimming late the mountains fade into the sky like a soft watercolor in blues and grayed purples. and to the west the sun setting, across the mists reds and oranges like a sea on fire.

kochi 20-22 august 07

on arriving back in kochi we settled down for a good rest in our “heritage home” guest house, all light with wooden ceilings wooden doors marble floors and a courtyard that we could look out onto from where we sat outside our room. the perfect spot to sit about reading of a long lazy hot afternoon. and perfect for the main appeal of fort kochi. cuz i don’t think anything much ever happens in fort kochi; there are these quiet homes and there are these quiet tea shops, these quiet streets lined by old buildings... a gentle little place to finish up a tiring trip across south india.

so these last few days floated by, us eating our appams and curries and steamcakes and mashed bananas, sipping endless pots of tea and fresh lime sodas, supping beyond our means at the fancy restaurants, walking the streets past old portuguese trading houses and old village-style homes with their sloping tiled roofs, standing by the sea to take in the air and watch the choreographed collection of fish from the chinese nets, taking ferry rides across to get lost in the hustle bustle of ernakulam or to wander up towards sunset at cherai beach, watching the birds hopping about in the garden from the table outside our bedroom.

there were a few more specific attractions of course, aside from the calm and peace of just existing in the midst of all this. the dutch palace down towards jewtown was absolutely beautiful. a lot seemed to be closed off, but it was still full of murals of the mahabharata and krishna lila and other such subjects all with weird shaped women that looked most like men, and lovely wooden carved ceilings. there was also a gallery of portraits of the various rulers of kochi and some odd palanquins and head dresses and swords to fill up a bit more space.

there was also the synagogue over in jewtown. very airy and nice to just sit and take a bit of rest in, with a floor done in blue and white tiles from china, crystal chandeliers and gold pulpit, and lots and lots of glass lamps in many colors. there was a balcony upstairs for the lady folks. but outside of this, there was very little to indicate the community that had once settled here. instead, the streets around the synagogue seemed to be the place for some reason that all the sellers of kashmiri shawls and various antiques gathered, crowding the streets and calling after you to take just a look with frustrating persistence.

kochi was like a breather and a buffer between the running-around and ambition of our trip, and the inevitable return to kolkata. we lazed and lay around and breathed deep. and then when our time was up, we gathered ourselves and our things into a new suitcase, the troublesome tiresome red suitcase that had weighed us down finally having finally broken apart on the way back from alleppey, hopped onto the first autorickshaw that gave us a fair(ish) price, and set off out of the city, out to the airport, to catch our flight back north.

alleppey 18-19 aug 07

almost immediately after arriving in alleppey, after only a brief rest and a quick meal, we hopped on another bus a bit further down the coast to see the krishnapuram palace museum. located down some random dirt roads off of the highway was this beautiful serene building made of wood, two stories tall, organized around four courtyards, with a red tiled roof and some gardens situated about it. i am not sure whose palace it was back in the day, but now it is uninhabited, rather haphazardly turned into a museum. so the attractive interior, that i would have liked to look at just by itself, thronged with naga statues, swords, some strange geological models of something or other... there were tho some interesting samples of murals taken from various temples in the area, as well as some originals to the house itself still visible on the walls, including one huge one of ganesh, vivid and fresh and full of color and action. the house itself tho was the best part, so light and airy and simple in line and open, totally reminding me of japanese architecture. the wood it was all constructed out of was rich and dark and lovely.

the visit was somewhat marred by the presence of two indian guys who attached themselves to our tour mostly it seemed to get more ample opportunities to stare at us. but other than this it was all good, and definitely worthwhile to get a sense of keralan architecture which can get a little muddled in all the throwing together of traditional methods and newer ones, which is i guess maybe just a reflection of the use of just whatever is at hand whether it be mud wood cement or corrugated iron.

after this we got ourselves back to alleppey again by local bus and set out to walk a little along the canals toward the sea, hoping to get a chance to see some old buildings, take in the peaceful calm of that part of town. all these old warehouses etc from back when alleppey was an important port, elegant and simple and intact. if only somehow there were the resources to restore all of these and turn it into a heritage area, it could be such a worthwhile project. but as it was most of the area seemed deserted and out-of-use and irrelevant to the main action, which took place back in the mess of downtown near the bus station in the typical crush of commercial enterprises that you see in any indian city/town.

we struck the sea around time for sunset, sat breathing in the salty air and watched the sky changing, all the people on the beach flying kites, talking, eating, and one gang of youths playing soccer with one very small blond child. soon the crowds began to disperse and so we left also, stopping to sit and sip some drinks at the raheem residency, a lavish heritage hotel right on the beach, since we couldn’t afford the meals but still wanted a look into the interior. and did some foreigner watching, a few groups of which straggled in looking not so classy and really kinda trashy in the context of this fancy schmancy hotel. especially memorable was a group of three french folk who wandered in in disarray, barefoot, in fact, with the one woman among them wearing only a short kameez whose hem grazed her mid-thigh, nothing to be seen underneath but the bareness of her legs! this was quite a shock. only a little later we left, averting our eyes and sighing, what must they think of us?

the following day was our trip into the backwaters, in its most economic form that didn’t involve being on a motorized ferry full of thirty, forty people. just us two, two boatmen, and a canoe, a canopy sheltering us two who sat in the middle lounging for five hours as these two men labored away with their oars. we could almost immediately see the appeal of the backwaters especially to the tourist types. because aside from the beauty of all the various passages of water and our quiet engine-less movement thru them, there was also the life of the people playing out on the banks to watch:

a crowd of chickens running round a lady on stone steps at the water’s edge washing her metal pots, men squatted by the water grimly brushing teeth or rubbing soap into bare chests, folks fishing, ladies slapping dirt out of clothing against the stone of the steps, a marriage in progress at some newly-erected pavilion, the smoke and smell of puja with its attendant crowd of people and raspy music at a canal-side mandir, men up the trees to gather down the coconuts for toddy, men floating down parallel to us selling fish from nearer to the beach, a shady (aka sketchy) canal-side corrugated iron liquor shop decked with communist posters selling coconut beer (toddy) fresh and lovely despite the number of lungi-clad men staring at the funny foreigners, a baby screaming while mommy washes it, a glimpse of rice paddies over the banks, laundry out to hang, rare birds in air and in water, leaves floating, houses and huts built down to the very edge of the water, pink water lilies poking upwards, low hanging trees casting shade and shadow onto the water, baby canals splitting off here and there in every direction, ancient-looking canoes moored to the shore, rusty red tin, hung tarpaulin and tiled roofs, chickens running along the shore, ducks waddling along behind them, the regular noise of oars dipping into the water, the quiet of an early sunday morning...


all the small rituals of daily life played out against a super-scenic and stage-like backdrop. only occasionally interrupted by the roar of the motorboat. i can only imagine the excitement for someone fresh to the scene, to be able to observe from such a close vantage point at such a leisurely pace these kind of typical village scenes. and in such cool and quiet (at least for us under the canopy)... left both me and schmabil hungering for a week floating about on a houseboat. i suppose tho that can wait for wealthier times...

the next day we left early, by crowded bus, for our final stop (and at that a repeat one), kochi.

passing thru kochi 17 august 07

suffice to say the night ride from kodai to kochi was miserable misery. feeling ill and crunched up in what they claimed as a semi-luxury coach i spent the night semi-delirious jerking in and out of light sleeps to the sound of honking horns as we passed over rough roads, thru eery forests. of course schmabil slept thru it all, that lazy lugschmug who maybe only an overturning or crash could shake out of slumber.

we got into kochi round six thirty in the morning, and caught an auto to fort kochi. and once at our ‘homely homestay’ we collapsed for a few hours there on the bed... after which we showered and newly spic and span we went out for breakfast at the kashi art cafe just nearby. where we sipped our filter coffee and nibbled on our banana cake and leafed thru the newspaper, all quite reviving and reorienting after the nightmare of the night. the place was beautifully designed/landscaped, sprawling, everything perfectly placed for a cunning picturesque type of effect, all these little nooks and cozy crannies hidden away around corners. a gallery space leading in to a series of rooms n courtyards where people overwhelmingly foreign sat at tables, benches, all much like us sipping and nibbling and idling away the morning.

then what? a wander around the various churches, the residential areas, and finally over to jewtown. there was santa cruz basilica, striking white and grand, inside on the wall and ceiling paintings from back in the day by some painter brought over from europe. there was also st. francis church where vasco da gama had been buried before the body was shifted elsewhere. but that visit was for only a moment, it was simple, almost nothing there sides a few old tombstones. after the beauty and richness of santa cruz basilica, it was really nothing.

then there was the indo-portuguese museum, a well-kept and really interesting (for real!) collection of relics of kochi’s colonial history, including wood figurines of various holy folk, paintings on panels, tabernacles, glittering monstrances, more... we were given a personal tour by the over-eager ticket seller who (we knew there had to be a catch!) took us into the gift store and guilted us into buying some random perfume...

then off we went down the road to jewtown, meaning to see the synagogue there that turned out to be closed. it was still a scenic old way, all these trade houses, ware houses, some dilapadated more and some less, some in ruins and some in use. we stopped at some french place called caza maria to sip on fresh lime sodas, it was a beautiful place the walls in a rich royal blue and accents of various kinds, paintings, trompe-l’oeil painted on over the blue, and candelabras.

and then, the grand culmination to a day that was quick wearing me out, the obligatory tourist-y attendance at one of the all too numerous kathakali shows crowding fort kochi. schmabil made me do it. cuz really, kathakali bores me to death. we got there in time to see a full hour of the actor-dancers doing their makeup, elaborate and bold, all this color alone probably the reason why the kathakali is the face of kerala tourism. kathakali is meant to be some seven hours long, each performance, but even this shortened one hour version left my brain screaming. cuz kathakali is on the opposite end of the spectrum from (my beloved, beautiful, forever fascinating) kathak; in kathakali the actor-dancer spends ten times the amount of time and does twenty times more complicated movements than necessary to communicate his message—in fact, i think he spends so much time per word, per phrase, that for me the greater meaning is lost in a burst of impatience, on my side. compared to kathak, which is so human, natural, easily comprehensible to even the completely uninitiated, kathakali is just needlessly confusing repetitive drawn out and obscure. not to mention the creepy painful-looking and excessive facial expressions/eye movements, stylized and extreme. i can admire the effort, the training, the specificity but i just cannot appreciate the product for any other reason, it doesn’t do anything for me. tho schmabil loved it. so i guess maybe for some folks, different strokes.

after that tho i was really completely done for the night. after some random bad dinner at some random junky hotel we got home... and the next morning, after a pleasant breakfast at a place called old courtyard, surprisingly enough located in a vast old courtyard with tables set out around its edges and a scattering of potted plants, we gathered ourselves and our big red suitcase together and set off for allepey and the backwaters.

kodaikanal, 12-16 august 07

the bus tugged n lugged its way up the soft hill at a hopeless crawl with its burden of peoples n luggages, slow and steady and really rather maddening to us poor passengers still queasy and slightly ill. but still, even in our weakened state, and in our annoyed even anguished anticipation, we could not help but still feel this excitement, as we drew away from the plains and into the hills, coming around curves to views of terraced farming forests and mists thickening at the limits of our vision, obscuring the beyond. i could feel my heart becoming lighter as the air cooled, as if i was entering some fantasy world, leaving all the stresses and worries of the real world, the strains of our travels, behind. and so finally it was with relief that we made it into kodai, and disembarked into a rush of touts and the crowd of traffic.

we got out of that crunch and down a bit of hill and to our hotel (“snooze inn”) and collapsed onto our beds. and we proceeded for the next few days to spend the bulk of our time devouring western n tibetan food like half-starved crazies, sleeping have into the day bundled up thick in blankets and occasionally between naps n foodfests sneaking out of the rush of central kodai down this or that quiet residential street where all the houses looked like cozy country cottages and all the gardens positively british.

we did make an attempt at the trekking thing, most likely a bit of a mistake considering our condition, and frustratingly along with us were a crowd of energetic yet angsty francophone teenagers (one of whom asserted that she would rather die than have her photo taken with the rest of the group, as she moved towards the edge of the precipice as if to drive her point home) to make us feel pathetic and inferior, especially at first. the walk was uneven and rough, lots of ups and downs on slippery paths with loose stones and soil so really kinda stressful especially considering we had to make at least some efforts to keep up with all those ‘youngsters’ and so not fall pathetically, shamefully far behind. my inability to deal with steep downhills was definitely a problem here; when faced with such situations i froze in my tracks, and looked around for the nearest branch/body to cling onto. but we made it thru to the end... at which point, once we arrived back at our hotel, i could feel the exhaustion, the full physical cost, of this little adventure descend upon me. i managed it to the israeli-run cafe a bit away for a snack, but soon’s i got back i was down and out, no hope for any activity for the rest of the day and the majority of the next one.

which might have been good timing at least cuz it was that night itself that the huge festival for ‘la salette’ (a figure of a crowned virgin mary kept in a nearby church) and so kodai was descended in a cacophony of bangs and shouts and the blare of music out of speakers strung along the street from top to bottom of the hill. kodai was not really at this time in a condition to be wandered about, tho i guess really sleep did not come to quick either in the midst of all this. as outside the crowds paraded their idol about in a halo of neon lights, i tossed n turned and sighed the night away, clutching at my quilt for comfort... it wasn’t until three or four that finally quiet, and sleep, came.

the next two days we went back to our lounging over-indulging ways, sleeping late into mornings and eating away the afternoons. frequenting most that israeli cafe, always so pleasant except those moments when invaded by students of the super-prestigious american-founded boarding school in town, all loud and over-styled over-done and absolutely selfish and obnoxious like only the self-entitled self-absorbed rich teenager can be. but no matter, there were still the foods there, which we still enjoyed to the utmost and so mmmmed away much time over.

and in this way before we knew it we found ourselves on our last day, the days having spun by in a haze, and with a good bit of trepidation we set off on our overnight trip to kochi, starting out in some rusty old contraption with some obnoxious spanish girls and a bundle of stinky potatoes underfoot.

madurai, 11 august 07

after another classic breakfast of idly and pongal and an early checkout, achieved only after some serious wrangling with the guy at the desk on the subject of improperly imposed luxury taxes, we caught our bus out of trichy. after a quiet and sleepy ride, we finally got in to madurai. the hotel was the cheapest yet, and simple, but with a view from the roof over into the meenakshi temple complex. we went wandering about madurai: poked our heads into unsigned offices and peeked around corners in search of the tourism office (never found), ate a miserable lunch (never trust l.p. guide food recs ugh somebody here so got paid off), sat about in our hotel room (so hot, what to do?).

finally, motivated by our early planned departure the next morning, we set out for the therumalai nayak palace, a ruin really, a twenty minute walk away. what was left tho left me wishing i could have seen the original, this one remaining hall such a huge impressive hulk, putting me in mind of an opera house or somesuch thing, great white pillars and grand archways and all done up in (what at least looked like) stucco work. tourists, mostly probably in madurai for the meenakshi temple, sat around on the stairs and milled about vaguely under the vaults...

we saw a museum dedicated to gandhi, off on the other side of the city. it was fine. it featured the blood stained loincloth gandhi had been wearing at the time of his assassination. and endless other memorabilia and pictures and informations that involved too much text and attention at that point of the day.

and round towards evening time we made it back to the temple. a similar sort of thing to ranganathaswamy temple in trichy, but that it was better preserved, smaller, and had some absolutely incredible stone carving. the best part was the room of a thousand pillars, which they called a museum and charged an entrance fee for. which was totally worth it, because it was lined with these pillars that were bursting out into life, what might have been simple ordinary supports of stone transformed into gods, mythical creatures, each one unique and elaborate and dynamic. we wandered among these, and finally out into the proper temple itself, amidst all the mess and movement of pujas going on, following the streams of people. across from the entrance to where the most holy of the shrines was (blocked to non-hindus), there was far below a tank dug and full of water, with a man-sized gold lotus ornamenting it. we walked around this, walked behind all the commotion into the lesser temples where a few straggling pilgrims also wandered, and then left, back to our hotel.

the next morning after a night of some rumbly tummy time among certain of our party, we collected ourselves as best we could and left madurai before the sun was full in the sky. i think we were ready for something different. no more of these dusty tamil nadu cities, and no more idly n pongal, at least for a little while. on to the cool of the hill station, the clean of the air, the calm of the forest. on, to kodaikanal.

trichy n tanjore, 9-10 aug 07

departing pondicherry by bus we broke off from the coast for the first time and set off into inland tamil nadu. mostly empty, lots of agriculture, it seemed, tho few folk in evidence, also tons of highway construction and isolated engineering colleges springing out unexpected shiny and grand out of this grassland, that grazing ground... for a long time the landscape was flat, many dried-up riverbeds, dust flying into the open windows onto our faces and into our hair. but as we approached trichy there came up these sharp dramatic little hills covered in green, there came waters. and so crossing the river we came into trichy, set to winding down the whole long sprawl of it to its southernmost tip, where lay the bus station.

trichy was a buzzing little town, and as we rattled in covered in the dust of our travels we passed busy bazars and shopping streets aplenty, before turning into the bus stand way to one end of town, far from the action but close to the hotels. ashby’s hotel, so highly recommended on the basis of some kind of colonial charm (tho we saw nothing of it), felt mostly like a run-down motel, our room yellowing, our bathtub and showerhead malfunctioning, and a musty smell in the discolored curtains. outside on the terrace empty kingfisher bottles were idling on the cracked glass of the tables, and in the lobby a drunken scotsman solicited the hotel staff’s help in his search for some nameless fat french lady. behind the concierge’s desk was a padlocked iron door emblazoned in red with the word “BAR”.

well, there was at least the saving grace of the t.v. in the midst of this sad situation. schmabil, excited at the prospect of catching up on his precious hindi soaps, set right at it almost immediately upon arrival, begging me to not change the channel when i threatened with the remote. i sighed and sat down to my ginger milk tea, and we both rested ourselves an hour from the bumps and jumps and jolts of the ride inland. him with his quality television, me with my heavy dose (a full thermos!) of sugar and caffeine.

after which, stopping only to devour down a meal at a south indian place by the bus stand, we set in to see the sights of trichy. first stop was a dargah, in front of which we were caught in a rush of children who wanted their picture taken. only schmabil was actually allowed in, being a man, so i sat outside among the womenfolk and answered all the questions that the descendents of the man enshrined within asked of me. from where i sit it all looked glittering and gorgeous in green and gold.

from there we walked down to the lourdes cathedral, modeled after the famous one of france... inside the sexes were separated women to the left and men to the right; there were no pews but a bare floor where people sat cross-legged and said their prayers. i had never seen such a format in a church, so it was all unexpected to me. some kind of prayer tape was on repeat, rattling out in a cloud of static thru speakers, in tamil or in latin i couldn’t tell.

from there we climbed up the hill temple, thru cool rock tunnels past old carvings; no hindus allowed beyond a certain point so frustrated at our stolen and brief glimpses of gorgeous colors painted across the ceiling within and all kinds of sculptures, we went on, climbed to the top of the hill and looked out over the city, musty and dusty, lights shining orange thru the thick air as the sunset came on... we scrambled back down and hopped a bus and were back to ashby before we knew it. and after dinner watched tamil music videos into the night...

the next morning we set off to tanjore, with its world heritage site temple as well as a palace... and the temple was incredible. in the early morning light it shone warm, its unpainted red-gold sandstone basking, a lovely, rich color, so sweet in the sunlight. a huge nandi was front and center upon entering, while innumerable other nandis lined the outer enclosing wall. in the back were the hundred and eight lingams as well as some beautiful mural paintings of hindu religious images. the towers towered above us defying our camera lenses as we wandered around the neat and clean grounds.

happy we left and walked into the town proper to get to the palace, a confusing carved up incoherent thing, some four museums some random opened-up spaces one nice painted-up hall and numerous displays of silverware piles of coins unlabeled portraits junk old pottery headdresses all manner of randomness really. tho there were some rather nice statues, carvings, manuscripts... we left grateful to be done, a little confused and definitely overwhelmed by volume of objects, and the lack of organization/differentiation between what was worth displaying what wasn’t.

back in trichy we went to see one more attraction, a bit outside of the city. a temple complex called ranganathaswamy temple, and dedicated to the sleeping vishnu. huge, sprawling, all busy and all over the place, pujas going on here and there, some people resting against pillars, others wandering around... all these smaller temples within the larger complex, most not so incredible but fun to wander around. a couple of beautiful things, some old murals hidden away up some steep staircase including one lovely rendering of that sleeping vishnu, some impressive pillars carved into the shape of rearing horses supporting a pavilion where the real horses were really living...

afterwards we walked on back through the same series of grand gates thru which we had entered, a path lined by shops fruit juice stands restaurants all a mess of people and commerce. eventually got back to the bus station, bought loads of fresh fruit for dinner at a produce shop that left me impressed with its organization and proper appearance, comparisons quickly coming to mind with the tangle of vendors on a kolkata street, hemmed in by cracked concrete and exhaust fumes, nudged into the scene like an afterthought.

and so had a peaceful restful evening of guava and grapes sitting on our beds watching reruns of good old american sitcoms half-asleep after an exhausting day. early to bed, for it was on to madurai the next day.