Week 22 - India

The beach at Varkala

Great waves

Cooking

Tandoori Fish

Classified ads: Find a spouse by your caste level!

Namaste! Hello from the remarkable region of Kerala!

The past week has been more of a holiday (vacation) than arduous backpacker style travel. We have stayed in comfortable hotels, ate 5 star quality meals, and swam in 5 star quality waves, but before I get too carried away, let me tell you something that I've finally just come to grips with....

In India people are not equal, by any means; with 20 people, there are probably 20 different levels. This is referred to as the "Caste System". With my American ideals, I believe people are all equal regardless of race, religion, wealth, etc, UNLESS, you are a Manchester United fan, then you are the scum of the earth! I'll do my best to explain this phenomena known as the caste system. If your father is a rickshaw driver or a fisherman then this will be the level of your caste, regardless of your education, job, or intelligence. There are thousands of castes and its a way of probably aristocrats thousands of years ago, creating a hierarchy within society and then the people following it to a tee all the way down. People almost always marry within their caste. In fact we have read the classfied ads in newspapers detailing ones caste; looking for not a girl/boy friend, but a spouse. I know this happens a bit in many counties, but in India its a serious problem, in my opinion. The reason: The people of India don't progress - hence the mass scale poverty! As the believe in reincarnation, they are seemingly told just don't rock the boat and you will be reborn in a higher caste. From what I've read, the first Buddha tried to change this in India in the 500's, but Buddhism wasn't accepted and Hinduism prevailed.

I was going to tell you about what its like to ride the train in India, but this morning I realised that we hadn't ridden in a lower class carriage yet, so we will do so to give the full story.

In the mean time, let me tell you about the bucket. In all hotels, no matter of the level, (well, we haven't stayed at the Taj Mahal Hotel yet), they have a big bucket with a scoop. At first, we weren't sure if it was left by the cleaner or if it was for laundry or what. Then we noticed homeless people using this on the street to bath. Somehow its worked its way into hotels as well. What is a bit frustrating is many of the showers do not have hot water, but the lower taps to fill the bucket do; so when in Rome, we have been using the bucket and its hot water to bath :D

Our past week in the Indian state of Kerala: Varkala > Ernakulam

Monday to Friday - The chilled beach town of Varkala: This cliff side beach town (if that makes sense), is very hard to leave. Such a splendid and charming small bastion of relaxation in chaotic India. Let me tell you about a few highlights of our stay here. We had a cooking course one day, learning to make Chicken Tikka Masala, Palak Paneer, Parata, and Prawn Biriyani - well, Marina had the lesson and and watched, well just wrote down the ingredients, eager to steal their secrets! I'm sure Marina's mother Ludmilla will be happy she has now cooked for me on this trip. This was the only time we had curry during the 5 days; the reason, SEAFOOD. Not just seafood, but the best seafood of my life!!! I can tell you for sure, this has beat the Seychelles and is the number one destination for seafood I've been to! Let me describe the normal dinner for us EVERY night; 4-6 Tiger Prawns (jumbo shrimp) each about 3 huge bites for me, several good sized calamari. Both the prawns and calamari would be grilled with butter, garlic and lemon. Then for the main dish, we would have a tandoori fish, HUGE Red Snapper, tuna, barracuda, or my favourite Butterfish -you can only imagine what that tastes like! Along with sides of salad and grilled veggies! :D And all of this would be about $15 total for both of us. YES! Then lunch was a huge steak of Mahi Mahi, or the above with sides for $4/each.
Another great thing about Varkala are the beaches, which is tough to say about India as they are usually dirty. Not in Varkala - its BLACK sand beaches are fantastic! Also, the waves, maybe we were lucky, but we had 10 foot (3 meter) waves, every day! So fun! In the restaurants all night we would hear the waves crashing!
Lastly the fun people, we had a good time partying, well kind of partying, they can covertly sell you beer as its not fully legal, so its pretty open, but the bottles need to stay on the floor.. Varkala -what a great place! Its our best food place of this entire trip so far and one of our favourites as well!

Saturday - Fort Cochin: We have come for our last night in Kerala to Ernakulam and spent yesterday at its island area of Fort Cochin. This was an island occupied by Europeans for trading purposes hundreds of years ago and as a result its full of churches, trees, parks, and its clean! Seemingly its run by Muslims, Christians, and Jews, its a phenomenal atmosphere to stroll the streets without hassle, looking at the beautiful colonial buildings, watching the fisherman hauling in their catches (although I was unhappy to see the two baby hammerhead sharks). We also visited St Francis Church, founded by the Portuguese in the 1500's is where Vasco De Gama was buried!
I just wish we could stay longer here! Seemingly, I've been saying that about most places in India!

Well time to get going, I'm ready for a delicious curry! So whats next, today is Sunday and we are taking a long train journey to Goa for a few days and then up to Mumbai and Bollywood!

Until next time,

Dan and Marina