Cochin, Goa, Delhi...Oh...

I'm writing from Delhi, where every tout seems to think we'll gladly follow him into his non-existent official tourist office and hand over large sums of American currency. And thus, we've arrived here in one point of the "Golden Triangle" of India...a big tourist hub. We've only been here for two days and have only seen a fraction of this massive city, but all at once it feels sophisticated, vulgar, spacious, crowded, dirty, and stunning. It's India. The mustaches are also HUGE here in the North, which is very exciting.

We arrived via a 28+ hour train trip from Goa aboard the Radjhani Express. We were lucky to share a berth with some friendly college students. There was a loud, boisterous Punjabi man sitting across the aisle from us. While we were reading he would stare at us, and if we put our book down for even a minute he would strike up a conversation which resulted in displaying how knowledgeable he was. It's the kind of scene that is often replayed over and over around here. He stood out from the archetypical Indian man in that his clothes were not pressed and did not (even remotely) match, his buttons were unbuttoned almost down to his navel, and his oiled gray hair was long and shaggy. A character. Throughout the long night he loudly cleared his throat (this is putting it SO politely) and would alternately moan, sing, cough, and talk. I was feeling very unfriendly thoughts toward him as I tried to sleep and then I remembered, "You're on an overnight train to Delhi."

We only have a handful of weeks left in India...and I was reminded that this slight inconvenience is a small price to pay for this adventure.

Cochin was cozy, warm, hospitable, interesting. If I hadn't suffered a camera memory card debauchle (and lost all my photos from Cochin and Goa) at the last shoddy internet cafe I would include photos of the Star of David alongside a statue of Ganesha in "Jewtown" in Cochin. Cochin was colonized by the Portugese, Dutch, and British, and a small Jewish population remains (a fraction of a once substantial community). We visited the synogogue amongst many other interesting historic places, including the first Christian church in India, where Vasco De Gama was buried. The architecture and culture are quite unique, and so interesting. We also spent a day on Kerala's luscious backwaters. We glided along the narrow canals in our little wooden boats, past small villages of women doing their washing, men rhythmically swaying their bodies while fishing for mussels, and children splashing each other in the heat of the day. Kerala is the "land of the coconuts" and I'll spare the dramatic story and just tell you that I was the victim of one of the branches (thankfully not the fruit) falling from the sky and hitting me! (I'm fine.) Kerala also boasts a 99% literacy rate and continually democratically elects a Communist government. As the result of a land reform act of 1967 most everyone owns a small tract of land, as it was taken back from the landlords. It's a fascinating (and unbelievably beautiful) place. I'm so thankful we were able to be there for a while.

From there we moved on to Goa, to see for ourselves what all the hype is about. We thankfully arrived post tourist season which meant that we had days of almost private beaches and as long as we were shaded (and could ignore throngs of men staring at us when they came to the beach around sunset) we were quite comfortable. We ate most of our (delicious) meals right on the beach and soaked up as much of the sound of crashing waves, hot sand, and beautiful sunsets as we could. On our last night I spent a few hours engrossed in conversation with an octogenarian named Mani. An Indian (Brahmin) born man who "escaped" India in his twenties and has only been back to visit a few times since. We talked about food, books, India...all over gin and tonics, under the stars, and listening to the waves.