Cochin – A beautiful coastal town

I slept like a baby and was well rested by the time Thomas woke me up. When I got ready and came to the living room, Shaarad was already there. Thomas' parents had gone to attend some function at Kottayam, but his sister Nilima had stayed back.

The 4 of us then went for breakfast, and later to the bus station to drop Shaarad off. Shaarad had to go to Kottayam to meet an old friend of his from London. Shaarad was just about to buy his bus ticket when his friend called and said that traffic on the Cochin – Kottayam route was moving at a snail's pace, and it would be better if he didn't go through the ordeal. This suited us just fine, and we spent the remainder of the day just walking about Fort Kochi, watching the Chinese fishing nets in action, having lunch with a view of the backwaters, browsing through books and postcards and finally sipping on some unique flavored teas. We met Thomas & Nilima's parents when we got back home, and were treated to an amazing dinner prepared by aunty. The next day Thomas was to drive his Mom's old car back to Bangalore, so we called it a day immediately after dinner.

 

I had been to Cochin a couple of times before with my parents, but I saw it in a new light in this trip. It looked like a sprawling metropolis in some parts with giant high-rises, while in others there were large aristocratic bungalows besides the backwaters. It was such a harmonious blend of the modern with the old. The weather at this time of the year was quite pleasant, but I was warned that it could get quite hot and humid in summer. Nevertheless, I liked Cochin a lot.

To Cochin for Christmas

The one thing that is common to most of trips is that they are seldom planned. And this was true of the Christmas trip to Cochin as well. I learnt only on the 24^th of December that Shaarad was planning to visit Thomas at Cochin for Christmas, and since I wasn't doing anything over the long weekend, I thought I might as well head to Cochin myself. I remembered Sushil mentioning that he was going to some place in Kerala during the Christmas weekend by car, so I asked him if they had place for one more person. Not only they did have place, but they were also going to Cochin :) I had assumed that Sushil would be going with his relatives, but there was another pleasant surprise in store for me. He was going with a few of our seniors from MIT, so it was already promising to be a fun journey!!

The plan was to start early, and the cab was to pick me up from the Sony World junction at the ungodly hour of 4 am. I didn't remember the last time I had seen that time of day (or night), but I didn't want to be the villain in the plan, so I somehow got myself to the pickup location at 4. If you have already read "Christmas dinner & midnight mass", you know that I had had a late night the day before and had gotten into bed at 3 am. Having slept for barely 25 minutes, I couldn't wait to get into the cab, sink into some remote corner, and doze off. Imagine my horror when I call the cab driver and he says he was still asleep. He hurriedly apologises and promises to come in another 10 minutes. It was close to 5 am when he finally reached.

Having been totally impressed by the way Jonathan Yevin travels, I was carrying as less stuff as I possibly could in one light backpack. When we got to Vinay's place, he asked me to come up to his apartment to help him with the luggage (Note: This is a completely new Vinay, taking the number of Vinays I now know to 4). I almost fainted of shock when I saw the amount of luggage he was carrying. I think it was enough to start a small, happy family. The cab driver nearly fainted as well when he got a load of it. From here we went to Harish & Manjushri's place who had a few bags of their own. Then we went to pick up Sushil who wasn't traveling very light either. There was no way we could possibly fit all that luggage along with our unhealthy fat bodies in the interior of the vehicle, so most of it went on the luggage carrier atop the Innova.

Manju was having a bad day, and suffering from travel sickness, so we took frequent breaks along the way. The journey itself was a lot of fun, because the guys were super chilled out. We played Taboo and 20 questions along the way, endured Sushil's newly discovered PJs, had a MASSIVE lunch, got lost getting into Ernakulam, and reached quite late to Harish's parents' house. After spending some time with his folks, we headed out for dinner.

Thomas came to pick me up from the restaurant, and I said goodbye to the guys. Then we proceeded to Thomas' house which is a beautiful flat in a posh residential apartment complex next to one of the backwaters. If the exterior of the apartment is brilliant, the interiors are simply breath-taking. Thomas' folks have decorated their home very aesthetically, with a lot of interesting pieces of furniture. After a quick shower, and a light dinner prepared by Thomas' mom, I was off to bed.

Christmas dinner & midnight mass

We (Lawrence, Meena, Shaarad, Stag, Nishanth, Monishca & I) went to Koshy's for this year's Christmas dinner. I have always felt that Koshy's was an expensive, overly hyped eating place. It's true that some very interesting people from all walks of life meet there often, and it has a noisy but rather nice feel to it in the late evenings, but I think the food is still ridiculously dear.

They had a special Christmas menu, and the items on it did sound exotic. What caught our attention the most (at least that of all the non-vegetarians at the table) was the roast turkey dish, priced at a whopping 400 Rupees. I imagined that it would be a large carved turkey roasted on a fire (ala the wild boars in Asterix comics – especially on the last page). I think the other guys were also thinking such wondrous thoughts, because we decided we would order one for the table, and split it among us 4 non-veggies.

When the dish finally did arrive, it left us spellbound by its sheer size. I could probably finish the entire thing in under a minute with my fork hitting the plate a maximum of 3 times. Lawrence couldn't believe it, and had to confirm with the waiter if this was the turkey we had ordered. The waiter nodded his agreement with a large smile. The guy must have mistaken our looks of disbelief for pleasure.

Us non-veggies grumpily finished off the miniscule roast turkey dish, while the veggies had a good laugh at our cost. Now when I think of it, since the veggies obviously enjoyed that turkey more than we did, they should have probably paid for it as well.

 

After dinner, we headed home and chilled for a bit. When it was close to midnight, we walked all the way to St. John's medical college, and went to the chapel within the hospital. The midnight mass was in progress, but my body clock was already complaining. There were some pretty girls in the rows, but their beauty was no match for my sleepiness. I was leaning against some counter and continuously nodding off. I had a feeling that people around me were more interested in my comically bobbing head, than on what the Father was saying.

After the mass, the entire congregation moved en masse to a garden where a beautiful crib had been made. The garden had a pretty fountain, and the crib had lifesize figures which made the entire setup a real treat to watch. Next we were served Christmas cakes along with tea/coffee. The coffees were indeed brilliant, and the other guys had 3 or 4 cups each. I didn't dare to have more than one, because I had to wake up early. By the time we got back home, it was 3 am which meant I had only about 30 minutes to sleep. I had to be up by 3.30 am so that I could be at the Sony World junction at 4 to catch my cab to Cochin :(

Zero bag traveler

It has been a while now that I have been an active member of an online travel related website called couchsurfing. It is mainly centered around providing travelers a "couch" to sleep on in your home when they're passing by your city. There are others like it, e.g. "hospitality club" or "be welcome". A simple google search might give you a few more. Check them out if it interests you.

Anyway, lets come back to couchsurfing. As in many online forums, almost anybody is free to join, so there are all sorts of people in there. Some very interesting folks, and some complete a-holes. There are many types of groups as well, with city groups being the most common. Accordingly, Bangalore also has its very own group (lovingly called the BangCS community). From my experience over almost 2 years, I have observed that the Bangalore community is among the best in the world – touchwood. We have a regular weekly meet every Wednesday evening at The Couch on MG road, which I try and attend whenever I feel up to it.

On the Wednesday of 23^rd December 2009, I was not feeling particularly up to it, so I thought I'll give it a skip. But then I got a private message on couchsurfing from one Mr. Jonathan Yevin, who introduced himself as an American travel writer. He had just come to Bangalore, and was looking for people to hangout with. I told him about our weekly meet, and then thought maybe I'll just drop I to say hello.

Jonathan turned out to be an interesting guy with many travel stories to share. He seemed like a genuine person, and since he still hadn't found a place to stay; I offered him our couch for the night. He took up the offer and came home, and we started generally chatting about our travels (mainly his actually). It turned out that he had been traveling for more than 7 years now, and had been almost all around the world. For 5 months in a year he would run his landscaping business in New York city, and then travel for the remaining months.

But the most fascinating part of his travel was that he would travel without a bag. Yes, you read that right, NO BAG. All he would go around in was whatever he was wearing, his passport, his wallet (with some money and a credit card), his cellphone and maybe a guide book. He had been traveling this way for the last 5 years!

Jonathan totally redefined traveling light, and will remain a major inspiration whenever I'm going to pack another bag.

The Cool Crusader

December 9th every year is International Anti-Corruption Day. I would probably never have known this bit of trivia had Shaarad, my flatmate, not been working for an NGO doing stuff to prevent corruption in India. His NGO, the Public Affairs Centre (PAC) was also one of the members of the Coalition Against Corruption (CAC) forum. This year, the CAC was planning on assembling on MG Road and protesting against corruption.

Since I had no real work to do at my workplace, and since I thought that some beautiful women might turn up for the protest, I decided to join Shaarad at the protest. No points for guessing what the main motivation was. So we reached the place, put up some banners and signed a large anti-corruption poster. The protest started in full-swing with some village women shouting slogans in full earnest.

I had no intention of crying myself hoarse just for my voice to be drowned out in the incessant noise of the vehicles passing by, so I contented myself with holding one of the placards that read "Join the fight against corruption to free India". I proudly displayed it to every curious motorist who bothered to slow down to see what was going on.

After a while, when my delicate eyes that were used to staring at a computer screen all day couldn't take it anymore, I took out my aviator sunglasses, and continued to combat corruption. The small grins on the faces of people around me and in the vehicles gave me the impression that I looked real stupid, but I didn't care.

So after a few hours of doing his bit, the cool crusader called it a day, and headed back to the comfort of his beloved little cubicle.

<- check out the determined look
(short event writeup: http://pacindia.org/news/international-anti-corruption-day/)