17.5.11 – Long roads and a good driver (Thrissur to Calicut, Kerala, India)

17.5.11 – Long roads and a good driver (Thrissur to Calicut, Kerala, India)

Our lovely driver, who has already driven for about three hours to get us to Thrissur, has stayed overnight, and is now waiting for us as we complete our breakfast.  We’re getting used to and enjoying (for the most part) the spicy food here, which is usually extremely well cooked and presented.  However, curry for breakfast is a bridge too far, and rice cakes or boiled eggs usually appear or can be requested, or the ubiquitous cornflakes. 

Our driver loads up our as usual mountainous luggage and proceeds to drive us the next four hours to Calicut.  He’s now eight hours drive from home.  This total trip – sole use of the large, comfortable, air conditioned car and driver for two days – costs us 6,200 rupees (about £62).  Bill gives him an extra 1,000 (£10) rupees as thanks for his endless patience and attention to our needs.  We were well warned before we came, not least by our Indian friends, that we had to be careful of people who might try to take advantage of us because we are foreigners, and rip us off.  No doubt there are people who are keen to do this – there are such people everywhere – but we have found honesty, kindness and care everywhere we have been.  People who have had the opportunity to take advantage of us have not done so; some have refused tips, insisting on only taking exactly what they were due. We have had wonderful drivers, all of whom have placed themselves totally at our disposal for days at a time.  Without their help, this trip would have been scary and probably impossible.

Molly having coffee

We ask to stop for coffee, at a little hotel/restaurant, which advertises the essential (for us) air conditioning.  Molly loves cafes, and enjoys her juice, while I relish the rich and milky Kerala coffee, grown locally.  Bincy recommended it, and she was right.

Our return to the familiar hotel in Calicut is again a source of excitement to Molly.  As soon as we see the road the hotel is on, she asks to sit on her ‘yellow chair’.  She has remembered exactly which hotel this is of the many she has been in this holiday, and remembers that the seats in the foyer are indeed a creamy yellow colour.

We decide to go out shopping.  Indian cities can be scary places to the uninitiated.  The roads are sources of hidden man-traps, with large holes exposing deep and sometimes somewhat smelly depths below, with ridges which catch you unawares, and pavements which suddenly disappear with no warning, leaving you tusselling with the traffic.  You have to keep your eyes firmly on your feet, which makes you vulnerable to the low-hanging advertising boards slung out across the pavement at irregular intervals, and I have the bruises to prove it. 

We take Molly out in her pushchair – the only pushchair I have seen here, and a source of much curiosity to the other shoppers out today.  As usual she is the cause of the rapid production of numerous phones and cameras for the inevitable photos.  But she’s too hot and I’m too nervous so Bill and I head back to the hotel with her while Calum and Catriona decide to dice with death by crossing the road.  They return about an hour later, and announce visitors.  It’s Bincy, Subhash and his mother.  They stay, talking and laughing and looking at photos with us.  They seem very happy and affectionate, as newly weds should be.  Nice to see them now free to spend time alone together and display their affection openly, something that is not appropriate in this culture before marriage.  

A picture for Bincy

Catriona has done a painting for Bincy.  It shows the palm trees lined waterways of the Backwaters, with a little house peeping out.  But the little house is not Indian, it's Scottish, a highland cottage, similar to Catriona's own house back in Lennoxtown.  On the back she has written 'Where ever you go, God will find you a home'.  She had a home with us in Scotland, bringing her little bit of India with her.  Now Australia beckons, and God will be already preparing a home for her there.

Suddenly, a heavy hissing and pattering noise attracts my attention.  ‘It’s raining!’ I say.  ‘Oh no, I don’t think so’ the Indians reply.  But no Scot can fail to recognise the sound of heavy rain, and peering from our window I can see a torrential downpour, forming puddles in the car park and bouncing off the cars below.  The rainy season is imminent, and this is the climate limbering up.

Bincy and family leave, and an intensive packing session gets underway.  Twenty four hours from now we will be aboard our flight, all going according to plan.  Our amazing adventure is coming to an end.