Sandy Does The Subcontinent

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

So I woke up the second morning in India feeling sniffly. On the train ride to Agra I began to feel a bit more sniffly and my throat was scratchy. By the time we were actually at the Taj Mahal, I had a full blown head cold – fever, burning eyeballs, head exploding sinus pain…the whole shebang. Which colors my impressions of the experience a bit but it is still one heck of a building. And so my style – ginormously overblown pure white marble monument to love and loss. I really wish I’d thought of that.

At the train station on the way home, I think I had my first spiritual moment in India. I was so weak and ill I could barely move and my mind seriously started to pretend like it didn’t even know my body. Insert smart sounding comments about nature of consciousness here.

But I survived the trip back to Stef’s house, albeit curled up in a ball moaning about the air-conditioning, where he treated me with a glass of orange juice and a clove of raw garlic in olive oil, and Mary gave me Tylenol nighttime cold pills. How great are they? Stef also confined himself to one teensy comment about how odd it was, since no gets head colds this time of year.

Let’s see…then Mary and I flew from Delhi to Cochin with a layover in Mumbai, and the two descents made me finally realize why babies sometimes scream bloody murder on landing. A stuffed nose plus atmospheric changes equals stabbing knives in ears. Who would’ve known? But that combined with a turbulent flight and general exhaustion  led to what Mary later categorized as an “illness crisis.” But more about that later…

ps: I have photos of me blowing my nose in front of the Taj Mahal that I’d like to share with you but I can’t get my card reader to work in this computer. Sorry. Maybe another time.  

Mary and I had 20 hours of flight time to mentally prepare for our landing in Delhi. We’d both been well warned of the immediate shock of India and so were ready for the crush of humanity, the assault of the foreign, and the sheer India-ness of it all as we walked through customs and into…nothing. Or rather, a sparsely tidy arrivals are where we quickly and easily changed money at a good rate with no fee, bought train tickets for the next day’s trip to Agra, and got pre-paid taxi tickets.

But where was the crazy? We figured it was probably outside, so readied ourselves to be attacked by touts as we stepped outside. They were there…and they couldn’t have been less interested in us. The most aggressive they got was to point out our taxi when asked. Mary, for whom this was her introduction to Asia, summed up our confusion during the ride, saying, “I’ve had a harder time leaving Heathrow.”

Stefan Kaye – our gracious host in New Delhi – was waiting for us when we arrived, ready with guava juice and spicy snacks. We all took a stroll around his neighborhood in the pleasant 75 degree afternoon, inspecting Moorish ruins and back alleys, before going out for dinner. My first meal was Mysore masala dosa which was disconcertingly similar to having dinner at Dosa on Valencia. A friend of Stefan’s met us for drinks after dinner and then drove us home, where we had showers, reconfirmed our flights to Cochin and ate tapas as a nightcap before falling asleep to the joyful sound of temple singing down the street.

I’m not sure if it’s because we’re far from the tourist ghettos, because we’re with a local host, or simply because we were prepared for the worst, but whatever the reason, Delhi has been a pleasant surprise.

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Mary adds: there’s a street snack here called Nacho Corn and I’ve seen four monkeys.

I’m going to India!! This is my 2008 birthday trip. When I was 30, I vowed I would go somewhere fabulous and exotic every year for my birthday from then on, and so this year finds me dashing off to the subcontinent for a month. My partner in crime for the first two weeks is Mary Ringhoff. Mary is a real life archaeologist who spends her time digging up dead Chinamen in Nevada. I couldn’t have asked for a better traveling companion. Stay tuned for news of our adventures beginning on Saturday, April 5, when we fly out of SFO, headed for Delhi. Deli. I love it already.

(Side note: this is the second in a series of blogs that started with Sandy Does Southeast Asia)

Here’s a random photo of me from my 2006 birthday trip to Vietnam: