India bound
Trip Start
Jan 21, 2011
1
5
23
Trip End
May 01, 2012
Where I stayed
Kochi, Kerala, India
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
We spent our first day exploring Fort Cochin and were accosted by a rather friendly rickshaw driver almost immediately. He gave us a pretty good price to see the sights in a couple of hours so we hopped in and headed off to a Jain temple. The Jain faith has, amongst other things, a huge aversion to killing anything living so they are strict vegetarians and won’t even drink water at night for fear of swallowing a bug! It was interesting to see the temple but it wasn't exactly pretty. We did however arrive just in time to see the daily ritual of a man who feeds the masses of pigeons there every day. He arrives with 9kg of rice and calls a few words and the pigeons all fly as one around the temple 3 times before coming down to eat the rice. It was quite bizarre to watch and I even fed some. Our next stop was a ginger warehouse which smelt amazing, followed by a pure perfume oil shop and then a traditional spice market. It was interesting to see some of the more local sights as the following day was spent exploring the rest of Cochin and the usual tourist spots of the Chinese fishing nets, market and churches.
It wasn’t long after our second day that we realised we’d done a bit of a wrong’un in booking 6 days in Kochi! Although it is a nice little town there is not a huge amount to do and we found ourselves getting bored. I think the culture shock of India was also kicking in as we couldn’t help but feel disillusioned at the sheer amount of rubbish that lined the streets. It was a pretty overwhelming sight coming from a country where litter is a mere annoyance, and I got a little bit angry as everywhere we went there was piles and piles of old bottles, crisp packets, foil containers and even old toilets! Our original plan had been to travel up to Goa but when we looked into it the train would have been pretty horrendous as we hadn’t left enough time to book a seat and so we would have spent 16 hours in sleeper class crammed in with 100 other passengers. No thanks! We decided to visit Varkala instead as that was where all the locals recommended, more of that later!
To while away a couple of hours one day I decided to have an ayurvedic massage as Kerala is the home of ayurveda. I left Tom in a cafe and headed off to the place recommended by our homestay (Heavenly Homestay, we moved on from Beena's). When I arrived I was a little shocked as it looked like a minging old concrete building and not what I expected. I was beckoned into a dark room by a gnarled looking old lady and instructed to get undressed. Being very British I proceeded rather politely despite the fact that the old lady watched the whole thing and nodded enthusiastically every time I removed a piece of clothing. By the time I got to my underwear the nodding had increased with vigour and I realised I was expected to get entirely naked! I obliged rather shyly and was then slightly horrified when the lady started to tie a muslin thong between my legs! It was at this point I thought I should let all my usual expectations go out of the window and just go with it.
There was a flat hard plastic bed shaped a little like a shallow bath with sides that I had to climb into before I had a smelly oil poured all over my body (I should add at this point I was lying face up) and then the old lady started the 'massage'. Without detailing much further, it was probably the worst massage of my life! It was more like a constant bruising and was done with such a fury I thought I must have offended her. When it came to lying on my front the muslin thong was unceremoniously removed and I felt more vulnerable than ever. It was then that the leg massage began and what can only be described as torture as my knee caps were smashed into the plastic bath with each rub. I spent the next 20 minutes tensing my legs and trying to escape from the gnarly grasp of my massuese. Thankfully it was finally over after 45 minutes and I was led to another room in a scrap of an old dress for my steam bath. It looked like an old store room and there was a lady in there eating her lunch as well as cleaning products, old boxes and a general knackered feel to the place. I was forced onto a stool, naked again with the undone, muslin thong flapping about covering absolutely nothing, and then put into this black painted wooded box with a gap for my head! It felt like being put into stocks as they closed the box around me, and I recoiled in horror at the 35 mosquitos that gravitated around my exposed face. I sat in the steam for 10 minutes before being shown to a shower (cold water bucket) and then forced to get dressed in front of the old hag again! Finally I prepared to leave but my way was blocked by the lady demanding a tip. Having no willpower to say no I threw 100 rupees at her and fled. An experience I will never ever repeat again!
And so ended our stay in Kochi. We then braved the Indian rail networks and embarked on a 7 hour trip to Varkala. See next blog for details!
Comments
Hey lovely, Great to hear about your adventures! You're making me miss India!
That treatment sounds hideous... poor you! There are so many crazy people with absolutely no training that set up shop offering loads of different treatments... eww. Look forward to the next installment. Big big kisses from da hood xxxx