A Horde of Moustaches and Holy Cows

Holy or wasted steak? You decide.

On the way to Mumbai Domestic Airport, our driver mumbled something and pointed vaguely to the left. As we could not understand him, we assumed he was pointing out some landmark and we responded with a nod for our heads and a ‘ah’, as if we were very interested. On a closer inspection of the area to our left we suddenly noticed what he was referring to. A rickshaw (a three-wheel taxi with a carriage – don’t worry, I have more to say about rickshaws later on) was on fire with police in riot gear in close proximity to the burning vehicle. Our artificial ‘ah’ soon transformed into a genuine ‘oh!’ Our Orwellian experience was only just beginning. Upon arriving, we went through a series of strict security measures including; having our ticket checked at the door by an army official, the luggage being screened before it was processed and we were both frisked and electronically scanned. Army personnel casually strolled through the terminal equipped with pistols and machine guns. It was clear that the Indian Government had everything under control. Or did it? Now this is the worrying thing. Not once during this whole procedure did someone inquire to check our passports. Perhaps everyone was too engrossed with the news unfolding on every television at the airport. A prominent political figure had just been arrested for inciting violence in Mumbai and his followers, not particularly agreeing with his incarceration, took to the streets and set fire to taxis, just like the one we saw earlier. Well, the Mumbai police responded to the situation with some of the most energetic uses of a bat outside the American Baseball League. The way Raj, the political figure, was depicted by the media reminded me of Goldstein in the novel, ‘1984’, Who knew all that solitary reading I did as a teenager, instead of getting drunk and experimenting with drugs, would finally come in handy. The workings of India are surely beyond the confines of fiction.

A few hours and half a book later, we hit the tarmac at Kochin and made our way to our home for the next two days, ‘Costa Gama Home Stay’, on the outskirts of Fort Kochin. That is to say we thought we would stay two days, but we so enjoyed ourselves immediately upon arriving that we extended our Kochin leg to four days. It’s called Fort Kochin from the colonial days, when the Dutch seized the land from the Portuguese and built on the harbour. After the British took over they dredged up a large section of land and made an Island across for the fort – they probably had too much time on their hands. However, all three imperial powers contributed by building large and magnificent testaments to God (churches idiot). The Jews even made an appearance after the destruction of their temple by the Romans in 2nd century Jerusalem and built a Synagogue in a part of town aptly named Jew Town - great work guys. Apparently there were even supposed to be some Jewish descendants there, but all I saw were Indian rugs salesmen who called me friend.

The home stay was run by two lovely guys, Benson and Shi, who were very friendly and recommended some terrific local and authentic vegetarian places to eat. When you taste the Indian cuisine Kochin has on offer, you don’t miss meat at all. They also suggested things and places of interest and were generally lovely and welcoming. How did Anouska repay this said kindness? Well, she killed Shi’s pet Indian parakeet, Ammu by feeding it tapioca chips. Sure the vet said that the bird’s death was caused by a dramatic change in temperate, but can anyone deny the evidence of a bird dying less than a day after feeding it a fried product? Shi was visible upset, holding back tears, as he explained to us that Ammu had passed away while we had gone into town. Anouska will defend her position, saying that a tapioca chip couldn’t possibly kill a bird that frequently ate rice and chillies, but we know the truth. I have since dubbed Anouska with the title of “Ammu Killer”. She doesn’t like it much, but maybe it will quell her birdicidal tendencies.

Ammu, a few hours before he went to Heaven.
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Never get into a rickshaw. Never. Even if it’s a really hot day and you see a road sign which states, water - 100km. Do not get in even then! Not only does this practical joke of modern transportation feeling like you’re going through the spin cycle in a washing machine, but the drivers are so commission hungry that they will take you anywhere, except where you pay them to go. This is a transcript of one experience I had with a prick - sure.

Daniel: Hi, can you take me into Fort Kochin?
Driver: Okay, Four Rupees.
Daniel: Four.
Driver: No, Four. Four, zero.
Daniel: Oh, forty. Okay then.
Anouska and Daniel hop into the rickshaw.
Driver: Where from?
Daniel: Australia.
Driver: Austria. Good cricket team. You see elephant?
Daniel: No.
Driver: I take you to see elephant.
Daniel: Not today.
A few minutes later, the taxi stops.
Driver: I go see if elephant is awake.
Driver leaves the rickshaw and walks off, leaving Anouska and Daniel alone in the vehicle.
Anouska: Why did you tell him you want to see the elephant? He only wants commission. This is going to cost us a fortune. We’re not even going to have enough money.
Daniel: I said no, but he brought us here anyway.
Driver returns.
Driver: Elephant is gone out. Sorry.
Anouska: Thank God.
The rickshaw moves for a short distance and then stops.
Driver: This is temple.
Daniel: I don’t want to see the temple. I want to go to Fort Kochin!
Driver: It’s okay, It’s okay. Now the temple… (at this point, I stopped paying attention) blah, blah, elephant. Blah, blah, blah, water …
The rickshaw starts up again.
Driver: This is a good rug shop, full of very nice things to buy. We stop now.
Anouska/Daniel: NO!

Finally, we get to our destination with our sanity barely in tact and I pay him the forty Rupees. Being a civilized person, I thank him and wait until after he leaves to issue a string of expletives. Apart from this very annoying experience, rickshaw drivers have an infuriating tendency to call their rust bucket contraptions Porsches and Ferraris, which might have been funny the first few times, but irks you terribly the umpteenth time you hear it.

F%&k you richshaw.

So, after that, I ignored my mother’s wishes of not riding a motorbike and hired out a mo-ped to get around town. As you can see from the photo below I look really cool donning shorts and a turquoise helmet. A bike in Asia is a great way to travel. It runs on the whiff of petrol, you don’t have to deal with pushy rickshaw drivers and when shop owners try and herd you into their establishments, you just accelerate off. You are free to wind in and out of the little streets and see a lot of different things you wouldn’t normally on the tourist trail. There is a lot of freedom when you have the ability to go where you want. One day we decided to take a ride out to the beach on the man-made Island. The journey was 60km return and took a few hours on the small, busy roads of Kerala. It is difficult to exceed more than 40km/hr in speed as you are constantly trying to avoid potholes, cows (because they are sacred in India, they are free to roam the streets. They often like to stand or sit in the middle of the road and there is nothing you can do about it. Hitting them is a serious offence.) and other motorists, especially psychotic bus drivers who are not hindered by road lanes or speed limits. If you don’t get out of their way, I doubt very much that they would brake to avoid you. There seems to be a universal tendency of bus drivers being raving loons. I have encountered this trend in Australia, Vietnam and India. Perhaps like water, their egos have taken the shape of their vessels, which in their case is quite large, and they simply refuse to believe that they are just a bus driver and not the King of Bahrain or something.

97 per cent of all Indian men have a moustache. Okay, perhaps that is a made up statistic, but still it is probably much more accurate then something written in a Michael Moore publication. Coming from a country where only a small proportion of baby-boomers, like my father, tend to grow them, it just seemed really funny to me. I know it seems irrelevant, but I just had to tell you. The young guys are extremely vain, combing their hair in the bathroom every chance they get, while the older men are ragged and unkempt, and simply do not care if they have 3 day growth. The old men have a bit of a boys-club going with their chai carts on the street, standing around sipping on 10 cent tea, which incidentally, is the most wonderfully strong and sweet drink you will ever come across, while munching on a number of fried treats. They were very entertained to see Anouska and myself asking for, what is essential a poor man’s drink, but we absolutely loved it. Over the week we stayed in Kochin (yes we extended our stay again) I became terrible dependant on these places, often visiting the cart half a dozen times a day. It was the cheapest addiction I have ever had.

Photographic evidence of man with moustache.

The plan was that we were to only stay in Kochin for a few days and travel around Kerala for a week or so before we were due back to Mumbai to fly out to London. The more we extended our stay, the less time we had to travel around the state. But we did manage to get to Varkala, a beach getaway, amongst our tea guzzling and yellow stained, finger experiences with food for a few days. Although it was nice and relaxing, it no way compared to the joy Kochin gave us. The food was average and it was filled with the most bigoted and unfriendly tourists on the face of the planet. Anouska and I got into a bit of a verbal confrontation with a pair of English twats who thought it was funny to say things like “Hey Kumar. Isn’t there a bar of electricity in this whole country? Why don’t you make Diwali come early and put the fuckin’ lights on”. I admit, it wasn’t a really good idea of mine to tell them to shut up and enquire how England could possibly have become, at one stage, the great empire it was, with people like them at the helm. But it was even less of a good idea for Anouska to call them deplorable, uncivilised philistines, considering they were built like you know what kind of house and looked like they were extras out of “Lock-Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”. But when people act in an abhorrent manner, you just can’t sit idly by, even if it puts you in physical danger. It was a good thing they were too drunk to respond properly, or else I would have really had to show them … ah … how fast I can run away.

Boys at play.

Mmm, Fish