Benemma

02 Feb – 06 Feb

ROTTING TRUCK IN FORT KOCHI, KERALA

We emerged into the lobby of Chennai airport weary and wary. We were back in India, in the thick of it. But it didn’t look so bad. The build of the airport was basic, the walls stained in places, but it was tidy. I took myself on the adventure of my first visit to an Indian toilet in almost three months and was surprised to find it to be modern, it even had urinals. As I relieved myself into this most luxurious of Western appliances I wondered what all our anxiety had been for. Then I was distracted by a sprinkling sound. The urinals had been screwed to the wall but not plumbed into any pipes so the urine just fell through the hole in the bottom onto a drain on the floor, splashing sandalled feet on impact. Did I cringe? No, somehow it was like coming home.

We treated ourselves to our first ride in the ubiquitous limo of India, an Ambassador car. We had wanted to try one out since first seeing them in Delhi but they always felt like a luxury for the extra few rupees. They are ancient, curvaceous tanks with bulging seats and acres of flared steel. Inside, we sank into another world. The radio was at full power and the air was alive with the bleat and buzz of horns and engines. The beast-car held us snug under the dome roof of its gurgling belly as we stared out, wide-eyed, teeth-bared, into the hot night city lights. Here was India raining on our senses once more, captivating, suddenly making sense all over again. Thus acclimatised, we knew how to purport ourselves when we arrived at our hotel, storming into the hallway and kicking the sleeping porter awake off the floor. He took us through a series of high atria that crowded us with walls full of cracks and creeping foliage, through archways and corridors, to a vast room at the back with double-height stone walls and a bed in the middle. The pale blue walls and window shutters were leant an eerie charm by a strip light on one side of the room. 350 rupees you say? This’ll do.

When we were in Chennai before it was horrific, the city was rotting and half-drowned from the monsoon and our hotel was a filthy pit. This time we had done our homework and it had paid dividends. Chennai had changed, too. Now dry from three rainless months it resembled the archetypal Indian city of broken pavements, tangled architecture, wires strewn overhead like a pasta accident. Not quite the same, Chennai was a touch cleaner and felt more organised than the others. We noticed more advisory signs and rules about safe carriage, there seemed to be more staff and equipment with which to serve the masses. The differences were subtle and perhaps illusory. This was India, nonetheless, and it felt no more so than five minutes after leaving the hotel when my $2 Australian sandals snagged on a crooked paving stone and snapped. I limped perhaps only twenty metres before finding a man sitting cross-legged on the pavement with a shoe repair kit laid out before him. He looked at my mass-produced rubber sandals and shook his head in resignation so from my bag I produced my old leather sandals from Delhi which were faded and half-wrecked. He threw the first pair into the busy street and set to repairing the others. He then fixed Emma’s sandals and even her trainers. I pointed to all three pairs and said, “70 rupees?” (under a quid). He smiled, took the money and we were on our way again.

In our short stay there we took little from Chennai except one thing that we consumed in abundance: food. Indian dishes are light-years away from the twenty-dollar meals in Australia, and Chennai is particularly good for food. We engorged ourselves on what are often called “Meals” in South India, “Thalis” in the rest of the country. You get a handful of different dishes with rice and perhaps chapatti or papad, with endless refills of every bit. In one restaurant in Chennai the Meals were served on a banana leaf, from which we scooped sticky handfuls and stuffed them into our mouths. Waiters raided our table like wasps, slapping further dollops on top of the old ones before we could finish them. Chilli and a dozen herbs and spices tingled and brought us out in a ravenous sweat. It was overwhelming, I nearly cried with joy. Emma reflected eloquently on the remembrance of what we’d loved so much about India, she said it was like being in on a secret. Some of our well-travelled friends had tried to convince us to join them in India in previous years, telling us that we’d spend less than we expected and we’d love it in inexplicable ways, but we shrugged them off. Now we knew what they meant. That heavenly meal in Chennai, for instance, which came with bottled water, juice, coffee and some onion bhajis, came to 88 rupees. Our friends were right, it is that cheap, and we will never be able fully to explain why it’s so wonderful.

BOTTOMLESS "MEALS" SERVED ON A BANANA LEAF

Satisfied with Chennai, we jumped back onto the joyride of India’s trains. Every minute of the twelve-hour overnight journey from Chennai to Kerala was a treat. We slept soundly and woke shortly before our arrival on-time on the opposite side of India.

Here was Kerala, a narrow coastal state near the southern tip of India, buried in palm trees and steeped in an eclectic cultural history. Kerala was the first state in the world to democratically elect a communist government. As a major trading port, Kochi, our destination, hosted an extraordinary mix of religions. In the majority are Hindus, Muslims and Christians (a “50-50” spread between the three, as our rickshaw driver memorably described), then there is a significant number of Jains and Jews. Wealth, politics, faith and colonialism have stirred Kochi in fascinating ways.

We first approached Kochi from it’s best angle, on the water. A chugging old diesel ferry took us from the mainland across a channel to Fort Kochi harbour. The town is unlike much of the India we’d seen. Colossal umbrella-shaped trees line a broad promenade of grassland and stone, surrounded by a cobble of red brick and white plaster buildings with red tiled roofs.

On the waterfront we found the Chinese fishing nets which adorn the covers of infinite travel guides. We had seen them from every angle and in every light in so many photographs but were surprised by how big they were. The captain of one of the fishing net teams beckoned me to join in. I took one of the ropes that dangled from the wooden counterweight towering above us. We hauled, leaning our weight into the work and the net slowly levitated clear of the water. The captain and I clambered to the edge and surveyed our catch. There was just a handful of teeny mullet convulsing at the centre. The captain explained that the fishing used to be much better but had dwindled since the tsunami hit the opposite coast and swung round, affecting the marine life.

We explored Kochi on foot for a couple of days and were charmed by it. From the minute we had arrived, however, it was obvious that we were back on the tourist trail. The restaurants were overpriced and served unadventurous food catering to the Western palette. We had to explore far from the main strip to find the kind of dirty, understated local diners where the dining gets really good. That was a small inconvenience. Kochi is the kind of place we would take our mums if we were ever to show them India, such is its accessibility and beauty. There are rows of emporiums selling exquisite antiquities, there are elaborate dance shows on offer, churches, temples and synagogues rubbing shoulders amidst the palm fronds under a humid sun. So much history, trading and faith, nestling around narrow streets on an island. We wandered through its bustle until our feet hurt and our mouths were raw, then we refreshed ourselves and went in for more. Kerala charmed our socks off.

CATHOLICISM IN KERALA

We didn’t hang around too long though, we had one last appointment to make. We tried to get train tickets out but they were booked-up for several days. However, by then we knew many of India’s tricks and refused to believe that there would be no train for us. We went directly to the train station and jostled from one counter to the other until finally sitting at the station master’s desk and handing him our tickets for four days hence. He tapped a couple of keys on his computer, scribbled a note on our tickets and handed them back. We were booked on the train to Goa the next day. It’s easy when you know how but it’s not something you can learn any way but the hard way.