First travel crisis (plus bonus happy ending).
I was very nearly the first person in recorded history to die of a head cold. Or so I was convinced on that trip back from the Taj Mahal. If it weren’t for large family groups hogging all the floor space while eating their evening meals, I was totally ready to lay down on the ground at the Agra train station and die, leaving poor Mary to wander out into the Sahara until she’s found by a group of Bedouins. No wait, that was The Sheltering Sky. Nevermind.
As I already mentioned, the flight from Delhi to Cochin was challenging. Challenging like it’s challenging to have knives stabbed into both ears simultaneously. Then it got really turbulent as we flew through a lightning storm, and for the second time in as many days, I found myself making peace with my own death. I know it sounds drastic, but I was ill and India is pretty extreme, so expect crazy statements like that along the way.
The taxi ride from the airport to Fort Kochi took…wait, let me ask Mary how long it was…OK, “a million hours,” she says, confirming my own recollection. We finally arrived at the backpacker’s quarter well after dark – hungry, exhausted and ill (I was still pretty sick and out of it at that point). The place was deserted except for touts, who buzzed around us like vultures as we trudged down the muddy streets, going from one fluorescent lit stained wall slummy guesthouse to another. It was hard to decide which was the least demoralizing but we finally returned to the first, only to find that the one decent room had been booked while we were gone. So we were stuck in a superheated shoebox with a bathroom so small you had to sit on the lid of the toilet to shower. I was on the verge of throwing the mother of all “I hate it here” fits and Mary was melting down from low blood sugar so we went to the only restaurant still open, and had a bland, goopy dinner.
On the walk back to the hotel I thought out loud to Mary that this is just what happens when you travel – things get worse and worse until you’re about to snap (or you do snap) and then suddenly it all turns around. But things looked very bleak that evening.
As it always happens though, we survived, and when we woke up the next morning my cold was nearly gone, it wasn’t raining, and there was some hope again in the world.
On the way to do some after breakfast exploring, we stopped on a whim to ask at a homestay we’d read about but thought there was no chance of getting since it sounded too incredible and there were only two rooms, one of which was specifically talked up as being spectacular. It was…and it was also available.
So it happened that our luck turned. We’re now settled in a super relaxed colonial town on the Arabian Ocean coast, staying in a $25 a night room that should be a museum rather than a hotel room. It’s a Portuguese mansion built in the early 16th century, and according to our guidebook, is assumed to be where Vasco da Gama (India’s Christopher Columbus) died. We have a sitting room with a tv and then an enormous main room with 20 foot ceilings and windows overlooking St. Francis church, which was the first European church built in India, in 1503.
It would be pretty difficult to overstate the case of this house’s awesomeness. Mary and I both want to stay here and never ever leave, but we’re all India philosophical rad and know that all things must pass, both travel crises and best homestays ever. So tomorrow we begin working our way down the coast, to the southern tip of India.
Next stop: Allepey
ps: other fun things from today – attending morning mass in Malayalam (local Keralan language) at the Santa Cruz Basilica, getting Ayurvedic massage, and continuing to shop like shopping is about to be outlawed forever
pps: photo below is Mary celebrating our accomodation boon
Tags: Kerala
sandyo
You say “fluorescent lit stained wall slummy guesthouse” like it’s a bad thing
Yay! So glad the cold is gone but so happy it gave me something to picture and laugh at…sorry! xo