When I came to India I knew that, according to gap yah tradition, the likelihood of me adopting a child was fairly high. What I hadn't anticipated was that I'd want to adopt an adult: we had moved hotels in kochi to "green woods Bethlehem", and the owners - Sheeba and Ashley - are too adorable for words, it's almost absurd.
Releasing ourselves from the hugging arms of Sheeba, we set off exploring most of Fort Kochi: as we passed the Chinese fishing nets - 400-year old nets operated by weights - the locals operating them beckoned for us to join them. Admittedly, our rope-pulling didn't add much to their efficiency, but it was great fun - more so as the men, whilst they were pulling, chanted like something out of The Dark Knight Rises... We were then guilt tripped into giving the fishermen money - has anyone ever paid to do the job of another? Their disbelieving laughter as walked away confirmed my suspicions.
Borat jokes aside, we then wandered to the area known as Jewtown, whose highlights included the world's biggest Varpu (Indian frying pan) and a herd of feral goats that tailed us for hours. Overcome by a misguided confidence in our senses of direction, we endeavoured to walk back to the hotel through the spider's web streets of Matancherry. Thoroughly baked by the sun, we eventually returned to Sheeba's welcoming nest for tea on the rooftop terrace. It was there we met a charming, albeit extremely deep, German man who, as we tiredly sipped our Chai, lectured us on how "men are truly animals", quoting from hamlet etc. All stereotypes of the Germanic sense of humour were confirmed.
Our most expensive dinner yet (£15 in total) continued this evening of sophistication, especially due to the local yazz flute performance accompanying it - Rondeep Burgundy nailing it. Craving alcohol, we headed to a dodgy looking bar, which doubled up as "black magic tattoo parlour" (fear not, no related gap traj misadventures), where we were accosted by the over-chummy barman/drugdealer:
Barman: "we are like brothers, but we have different mother and different father"
Lissy: "aha! Brother from another mother?!"
Barman: "yes. And father."
With love
No comments:
Post a Comment