16.5.11 – Starting for home (Alappuzha to Thrissur, Kerala, India)

16.5.11 –  Starting for home (Alappuzha to Thrissur, Kerala, India)

Roadside stalls

We had meant to return to Calicut the way we came, by train.  To book this, last Friday Bill and I had taken an early morning walk, dodging the rickshaws and the ragged pavements to a small, hot office on the main street.  A young sari-clad girl, looking about 12, asked if she could help.  She and her mother then cranked up the computer and looked up the availability of air conditioned seats.  We discovered that there are no seats unbooked for Monday.  Or Sunday. Or Tuesday.  So we retraced our steps to the hotel, perturbed.  Mr. Kumar, the friendly, ever helpful and thankfully English-speaking hotel manager conferred with me over this dilemma.  He produced a map, told me that he could find a car and driver, that he would find a suitable hotel half way to Calicut.  In fact, it’s only a journey of 250 kilometers – about 150 miles. According to Google, this should take just over two hours.  We know better – Google has obviously never tried to negotiate Indian roads and traffic.  It will take about eight to ten hours to make the journey, hence we need to make a stop half way, at Thrissur, a city famed for Indian cultural events and for a major Hindu temple, at which an annual festival takes place – immense crowds and highly decorated elephants.  

Indian street

And so this morning we set off, luggage as usual swaying on top of our smart red taxi, Molly happy in her car seat beside the driver.  As we approach the outskirts of Alappuzha, numerous stalls appear selling woven hammocks and swinging seats, made of woven string and bamboo hoops. We ask the driver to stop.  In the dim interior of one stall, a seat is suspended from the ceiling, to allow testing, which we do, rocking to and fro in what proved to be an extremely comfortable chair.  So we further strain our luggage allowance by purchasing several, in the fond hope that our Emirates flight will stretch a point and take them back to Scotland for us. 

Bananas in transit

The journey northward is comfortable, passing through the usual scenery of palm forests, small stalls, houses ranging from small and poor to large and luxurious.  The city of Cochin causes considerable delay, appearing to be a continuous traffic jam.  Molly fortunately has loved all her journeys by taxi, endlessly fascinated by the colourful activity all around her.  For us, it’s been a good way of seeing the country during the heat of the day.

Our taxi driver at last delivers us to the hotel which our good Mr. Kumar has found for us.  The driver will also stay overnight locally, and drive on with us in the morning.  The ability to hire a good taxi and driver for days at a time has made it much easier for us to see the countryside than it would have been by any other means.  To do this at home would be prohibitively expensive, but here the rate of exchange allows us this very useful luxury. 

Meg outside hotel in Thrissur

The hotel is lovely.  An immense foyer, with intricately carved wooden walls, dark glowing wood.  Our rooms on the sixth floor are huge and airy, cool marble floors on which Molly runs and dances with delight. Over dinner, a girl comes in resplendent in a lovely cream and gold gown, folded like a fan over the skirt, her eyes painted in huge almond shapes.  She has probably been perfoming dance in one of the cultural centres.

We watch TV.  We have watched quite a lot of Indian TV this holiday as we took turns to babysit, and one thing concerns us.  All of the women acting in soap operas, romancing in Bollywood films, advertising everything from dresses to cooking pots, are all portrayed as having delicate pink complexions.  Paleness is idolised.  Adverts abhor ‘dark spots’ (freckles) and advise on how to avoid or remove them.  Skin whitening cream is pushed relentlessly.  Papers mount questionnaires as to whether or not you would prefer a pale wife and most people say they would.  Yet here in Kerala the populace is dark, magnificently brown, glowing against the yellows, pinks, oranges, sky-blues and whites of their saris and lungis.  They are beautiful people.  Pale skinned myself, I love this dark beauty.  Why on earth would you value pink skin in this climate, in this colourful country, the rich palette of which needs strong colours to look its best?  Why doesn’t Indian TV play to the strengths of these people, rather than trying to encourage them to value appearances they were never meant to have and should not be encouraged to wish for.  It is sad.  But then again, as soon as I get home, I’ll see adverts for artificial sun tan and for tanning studios, as we so called ‘white’ people try desperately to make our skin darker.  Human being are always discontented with their appearance, I suppose.

Traffic and travel