Friday, October 30th was yet another travel day, all in the state of Kerala, over the Western Ghats and down to the Malabar Coast. The mountain scenery was spectacular: only about 3,000 feet up, but very precipitous, though lush and green. We stopped for coffee and restrooms at a roadside restaurant hanging over a deep valley.
At first, tea plantations ran down every hillside, but when the altitude got below 1,000, we started seeing rubber trees.
We stopped at a rubber plantation, where a rubber worker showed how the tree was tapped and showed us a seed and a tiny sapling. The tree grows for seven years among pineapples or manioc or yams, then is tapped for thirty years, when it's cut down and the wood is used for plywood or light furniture. Then new saplings are planted and the process starts over again. Most of the first-quality rubber goes to the tire companies.
Once we were down from the mountains, the population density rose dramatically. One municipality followed immediately upon another, like pearls on a string or like suburbs in the U.S.
Finally, we arrived at the famous backwaters, where we boarded a beautiful 85-foot, two-bedroom houseboat.
Tables were set in the bow area and we had a nice lunch. Then we settled in for a delightful, leisurely cruise of the canals and lake. We wafted along, past other houseboats, mansions, huts, people fishing with homemade rod, women washing clothes by slapping them on a rock, people paddling canoes to get from one place to another, people paddling large, very full canoes to carry other people from one side to the other (like a Venetian traghetto), a kingfisher, a kite (the bird, not the toy), goats, dogs, ducks and geese, Catholic chuches and schools, Syrian Orthodox churches and schools, Hindu temples, shops, political posters for Hindu nationalists who want to ban beef eating (elections in Kerala are on November 2nd, next Monday), political posters for Communists (in the 1950s, Kerala became the first democracy to vote a Communist party into power), a poster of Che Guevara, rice paddies wet, rice paddies dry and burning, newlyweds in rented boats, American or European tourists, Indian tourists, working boats full of filled burlap sacks, sunken or wrecked boats--in other words, everything that you might expect of a place known as the Venice of India, in a state where Sudha said the population is evenly divided among Hindus, Muslims and Christians (Kerala is home to 60% of India's Christians--the reason we are here on this trip is because for many years now, Mary Joy has worked with Catholic priests from Kerala).
After about three hours, the boat docked in Alappuzha (formerly Alleppey), where there were huge numbers of houseboats and big new hotels. We boarded the bus and headed up the coast to Kochi (formerly Cochin), and our hotel in the old town, Fort Cochin, which has a history more than five hundred years of European trade and military involvement, first with the Portuguese, then the Dutch, finally the British.
As a free-time activity, Sudha took us on a long (100 minutes) walk, down the Spice Road (where the rice, tea and spice merchants would do their business, right next to where the docks used to be), past an old, old Catholic church that was filled to overflowing with a special Friday evening service, and past a mosque where a burial was taking place. I knew we were in a Muslim neighborhood when all the campaign posters for all the parties showed women who had their heads covered. Then I knew we were in a Hindu neighborhood when there were vegetarian restaurants named Sri Krishna and Sri Ganesh. In the latter neighborhood, outside a temple, we saw a Hindu priest blessing a new car.
We stopped at a rubber plantation, where a rubber worker showed how the tree was tapped and showed us a seed and a tiny sapling. The tree grows for seven years among pineapples or manioc or yams, then is tapped for thirty years, when it's cut down and the wood is used for plywood or light furniture. Then new saplings are planted and the process starts over again. Most of the first-quality rubber goes to the tire companies.
Once we were down from the mountains, the population density rose dramatically. One municipality followed immediately upon another, like pearls on a string or like suburbs in the U.S.
Finally, we arrived at the famous backwaters, where we boarded a beautiful 85-foot, two-bedroom houseboat.
After about three hours, the boat docked in Alappuzha (formerly Alleppey), where there were huge numbers of houseboats and big new hotels. We boarded the bus and headed up the coast to Kochi (formerly Cochin), and our hotel in the old town, Fort Cochin, which has a history more than five hundred years of European trade and military involvement, first with the Portuguese, then the Dutch, finally the British.
As a free-time activity, Sudha took us on a long (100 minutes) walk, down the Spice Road (where the rice, tea and spice merchants would do their business, right next to where the docks used to be), past an old, old Catholic church that was filled to overflowing with a special Friday evening service, and past a mosque where a burial was taking place. I knew we were in a Muslim neighborhood when all the campaign posters for all the parties showed women who had their heads covered. Then I knew we were in a Hindu neighborhood when there were vegetarian restaurants named Sri Krishna and Sri Ganesh. In the latter neighborhood, outside a temple, we saw a Hindu priest blessing a new car.
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