Virginia's Visit

I haven’t blogged for two weeks now, but I have a really good excuse. Virginia’s been here since late on the 14th of October … forgive me, but I haven’t given the rest of you much thought! She left last night for Copenhagen (boo!), and I’ve got lots of time on my hands again, so here’s the news, and lots of it. To paraphrase a Virginia-ism, after her, you come first!

We had a wonderful two weeks. Virginia had a touch of flu two weeks before she arrived here, so between that and jet lag, she was still a bit under the weather with a sore throat. But with lots of room for rest around the edges, we managed to do quite a bit. During the first few days we stayed close to the MCC campus. Had a lovely lunch with Joseph, a trip with my favorite rasika Mathivanan into Madras for khadi (and a mandatory stop for lunch at Murugan’s Idli Shop—yum!), a wonderful evening and dinner with Suri and friends, daily walks around the campus, and a good visit and lunch with Gabriel and family. All of this happened as preparations were underway for Diwali, the Festival of Lights. It’s a bit like Christmas and Fourth of July rolled into one—Christmas for the lights and the exchange of gifts (usually sweets!), and Fourth of July for the “crackers.” My goodness, they love their firecrackers here! Starting the day before, there was a steady crescendo of bangs and pops, and by the time we reached Diwali Eve, there was so much noise from all directions that it sounded like a war zone! This continued through the night and all of the next day. When the car came after dinner on Diwali to take us to our overnight train, we got to see what we had been hearing for the past 36 hours—people were all over the streets, especially the narrow lanes, lighting all kinds of firecrackers. Our driver had to dodge people and explosions as we took a short-cut through the neighborhoods. Once we got to the main street into the city, we got to see fireworks as well. Wow! Lest you think I am exaggerating, as we were eating breakfast middle of the next week in Cochin, we heard bangs and pops in the distance. Virginia asked Rayson, our travel companion, if people were still celebrating Diwali. He said, no, that was the sound of military exercises being conducted at the naval base nearby!

So with Rayson Alex along for the ride we boarded the Allepey Express on Saturday night and took it all the way to … Allepey! Rayson did a wonderful job of making arrangements for our time in Kerala (and Ooty), and he was along as a companion and guide to make sure we got where we needed to go, but we especially enjoyed getting to know him better in several long conversations. He finished his doctoral thesis about eight months, but here in India there is an interminable wait for an outside reader (usually in England!?) to approve (or reject) it. Rayson has already been waiting 8 months, but 6 months to a year is pretty standard. Yikes!

Allepey is right in the heart of the backwaters region of the south Indian state Kerala, a place locals like to call God’s Own Country! Since I grew up in God’s Country (LaCrosse, Wisconsin), I had to see for myself. It’s nothing like LaCrosse, of course (surprise, surprise!), but it is a lush, tropical paradise. The Western Ghats, a mountain range that borders the eastern edge of the state, catch all of the moisture coming off of the Arabian Sea, and the frequent rains keep it green and beautiful. The town of Allepey is situated between the seacoast and the backwaters, a huge web of canals and lakes that span a distance of 75 km. from Cochin in the north to Kollam in the south. One of the big attractions for tourists is a backwaters cruise on a kettu vallam, an old commercial barge converted into a houseboat with thatched walls and roof and a covered deck from which you can watch the scenery on all sides.

Our train arrived mid-morning in Allepey, and we went straight to our boat for a two-night cruise! (This was our splurge!) Virginia and I were surprised to discover that Rayson would be spending time with friends during our cruise, but we were delighted at the prospect of some private time after two months apart! After leaving the dock, we putted out into the large lake just north of Allepey. Lovely enough, but we were far from shore, and there wasn’t much to see but water, distant palm trees, and the occasional water bird or flower. I started to think that two days of this might get tedious, but as we entered narrower and narrower canals and gradually became attuned to the rhythm and variety of life in the backwaters, it became a fascinating voyage of discovery. On many canals there is only a thin strip of land between the canal and a large field of rice paddies. Residents build their houses right on these narrow strips; some homes are simple thatched huts, some much more luxurious. Either way, there’s no place to hide from the boats on the canal, and as we cruised up and down the waterways, we got to see people as they lived their lives, did their chores, and carried on with their daily work. Our daily routine was simple: cruise for awhile, then dock in a shady spot for lunch and maybe a nap (lots of naps—A/C could only be used overnight, and the temperatures weren’t that much cooler than in Chennai!), cruise some more, then dock for dinner and the night (sunset at around 6 p.m. down here). Our first night we docked on one of those thin strips next to the home of the sister of one of our three boatmen. After a wonderful fish curry dinner we watched a movie they got just for us! It was The Last Samurai, and we’ve seen it before, but we really enjoy it, but there was some problem with the audio track, so we watched it with English subtitles! Halfway through it was time to close up the boat and go to bed, so we retreated to our A/C cabin and slept very soundly with the gentle rocking of the boat.

We woke to find a chicken scratching the earth to dig up breakfast for its brood of chicks. We watched a fisherman extracting his catch from the net, and we were even invited into the sister’s home for a brief visit! She had pictures of the wedding of one of her children, but even more prominent was the photo of her one-year-old grandchild! On the second day our cruise took us past several towns and villages and some much more upscale neighborhoods. We saw schools and churches (not many temples … that or we didn’t know what to look for here in Kerala—temple architecture is distinctively different here), pedestrian bridges and a highway bridge, boats of all kinds, high-end and simple resorts, and even the lake where the famous snake-boat races take place every August. Unbeknownst to us, we spent the second night docked back in Allepey where we had first boarded the boat, but we enjoyed getting out and walking along the canal looking at the businesses that lined the walk. We finally got to watch the end of the movie and enjoy another good dinner (food was very good on the boat—except for the first days breakfast of toast and jam only!?). The final morning we took a spin out into the big lake for breakfast, and then back to meet Rayson at the dock. Overall, it was a lovely, relaxing time with lots to look at and enjoy, whether it was the people, the wildlife, the water, or the vegetation. Very peaceful, very serene—just what we needed.

We climbed into the car with Rayson, and the driver took us north to Cochin, one of the old Keralan cities with many evidences of the Portuguese and Dutch who were there. We visited several of the standard tourist spots—the Mattancherry Palace with its elaborate frescoes, the oldest synagogue in India, the Chinese fishing nets, and St. Francis Church, the oldest English church in India. Then we checked in at the Green Woods Bethlehem Homestay, very lovely place surrounded by tall trees and all kinds of flowering plants. We had a very comfortable A/C room, hosts Ashley and Sheeba were very friendly and helpful, and the covered rooftop dining area provided lovely views of the trees that shaded us even two stories up. Then it was off to a long lunch at a place Joseph recommended highly, the Grand Hotel in Ernakulam (the modern city attached to Cochin). Joseph said we had to try the karimeen (a local fish) in moilee sauce … was that ever good! The sauce was mild and somewhat sweet, thanks to the coconut milk (virtually every Keralan dish has some part of the coconut in it!), and we ate every last bite. After a little shopping it was time to go see a program of Kathakali and dances at the Greenix Cultural Center. It was a sampler geared towards tourists that included different south Indian dance genres, including bharatanatyam, mohiniyattam, and theyyam, though we were especially interested in the scene from a kathakali dance-drama. Too bad we couldn’t stay in town long enough to see a longer kathakali performance, but this was a nice introduction. Next time!

Next day, after a lazy morning at Bethlehem, we headed out for lunch at the Fort House, an older, traditional hotel with a restaurant right on the water, shaded by a cluster of huge palm trees. It was a lovely place to sit and watch boats of all sizes (including ocean freighters) go by. To the right you could look towards Ernakulam, to the left the outlet to the sea, and on the far shore you could even see another set of Chinese fishing nets at work. After short visits to the Jain Temple (not open after 12:30!) and the Syrian Orthodox Church (Syriac Christians were the first to come to India, probably within the first century after Christ), we took a rest back at Bethlehem. Rayson left early to catch a bus so he could spend time with his friends at the NGO where he once worked, and after we checked out we took the car to the beach to watch the sunset over the sea. Sadly it was very cloudy to the west, so we didn’t see much color, but it was still nice to watch the ocean waves coming in! Then it was back to the Grand Hotel for dinner, a good choice not only for the food but for its proximity to the train station. A four-hour train ride got us to Coimbatore by about 1:00 a.m., where we had to wait another four hours on the platform. Some larger train stations have retiring rooms or at least A/C lounges where you can rest while you wait, but that’s not Coimbatore! We decided the train platform was comfortable enough, especially in the middle of the night, and it worked fine except for swatting the mosquitoes, especially when a young French traveler sat with us to wait for the same train. A one-hour train ride took us to Mettupalayam, and after a one-hour wait we boarded the “toy train” to Ooty (Udagamandalam … but who has time to say that?), a narrow-gauge cog railway that still uses steam locomotives as it climbs some pretty steep grades up into the mountains. One book called the ride bone-rattling, but I did not find it so. Now it did jolt and lurch its uncomfortable way up those steep grades, managing only 46 km. in a nearly five-hour-long trip, but if it’s bone-rattling you want, take the American Eagle, the old-style wooden roller coaster at Six Flags/Great America. Still, the views were fantastic, and with frequent service stops to let the old steam engine cool a bit and keep it in good operating condition, there was lots of time to look down into the canyon or up at the peaks, grab a snack, or snap pictures of the trees, flowers, tea plantations, monkeys, and mountain peaks. Virginia had a great time watching the Indian families in our compartment, seeing how Indian parents interact with their children.

We arrived in Ooty shortly after noon. Due to its elevation (about 7,500 feet above sea level), this was the place the British escaped to from Chennai during the hottest months of the year (much as they did from Delhi to Shimla in the north), and it still has some vestiges of British heritage. Just like Shimla, they build houses and neighborhoods right up the sides of the mountains, but Ooty is smaller, quieter, and somewhat slower-paced. We took a motor rickshaw up the mountain to our lodgings at King’s Cliff, former home of one of the British nobility with lovely views of the town below and the mountains around it. The building is quaint, and the grounds are immaculately maintained (how do they get that lawn so short and even?), with lots of flowers, shrubs, and trees. After lunch and a nap (more naps!), we took a little walk around the neighborhood and came back to sit in the parlor in front of the fireplace, read the newspaper, and finally get some dinner in their excellent restaurant. Virginia, who is trying to avoid carbs and sugar, had a bit of a run-in with the maitre d’ when he insisted more than once that she order rice or bread with her dinner (she has trouble in general with the frequent over-attentiveness of Indian shop keepers who mistake curiosity for a desire to buy something). There were some ruffled feelings on both sides, but the food was really good. Our room also had a fireplace, which made it a lovely place to retreat to, settle in, and warm up a bit … especially good in a building with no heating! Oh, did I mention that Ooty is delightfully cool due to its altitude? Average temperatures in October range from highs of 65 to 68 to lows of 45 to 50. Given that Chennai has been running at least 25 degrees hotter than that, this was a delightful and much-welcomed change!! I must say, though, that the nights really were on the chilly side. It got down to 58 degrees in our room overnight, and I was glad for the warm blankets and comforter … and my life companion in the bed beside me!

After a lazy morning (and another nap!), we headed into town. Got a few supplies at Charing Cross (very familiar sound to that!?) and had a wonderful veg lunch at the Hotel Nahar. Then we went for a good long walk. Up to the British church first, St. Stephens, then past the old British bank building in the most British looking part of town, then down a long stairway into the bazaar and municipal market, and finally past the train station to the Boat House on a lovely lake. Lots of Indians were there taking rides in motor boats or row boats or paddle boats or kiddie boats (one half of the lake reserved for non-motorized craft). Again, it was nice just to sit and watch the families, enjoy the water, and rest after a long walk. After another motor rickshaw ride up to King’s Cliff, we sat again in the parlor, visited with some other American guests (taking a short holiday from their yoga school in Mysore), and had another lovely dinner. Another fire in the room preceded another gloriously chilly night.

On the second Ooty morning, Virginia had wangled some cushions so she could sit on a chair out on the lawn and watch the dawn. After breakfast and another lazy morning, it was time to check out and make our way back to the train. On the way we stopped for an hour at the Botanical Garden, a lovely place that extends way up the mountain-side. We probably only went half-way up, but there was much to enjoy on a Saturday morning—the flowers, the topiary, the greenhouses, the elaborate displays (one shaped like India itself) … and the families! Then off for lunch at Fernhills Palace, former summer home of the Maharajah of Mysore and now a heritage hotel. Sitting atop a mountain on the other side of Ooty, it also afforded some wonderful views. The building itself is gaudily decorated in a style that owes a lot to the British, and the dining room offered nice views of the gardens in back. Then it was back to the train station for the ride back down the mountains and into the plains. The ride was much smoother and more comfortable on the way back town, taking only 3 and a half hours (partly because we didn’t need to stop so frequently). This time we had seats on the valley side of the train, making it possible to get some of the photos we missed out on coming up! For the final 10 km., the train was really racing along on the flat lands, so much so that our train car in the rear caught up with the engine’s smoke and ash before it could dissipate. In the fading light we could even see the sparks flying down the tracks behind us! Another hour’s wait at Mettupalayam and we boarded the Nilagiri (Blue Mountain) Express train to Chennai Central Station.

It was our third overnight train ride, but this one was going home. We arrived at 5:00 a.m. Sunday morning and our car showed up at 5:30. By 6:15 we were back in our room at the MCC guest house, grabbing some more sleep before the day began. After breakfast I spent some time with the college choir talking music history, and then it was off to the Principal’s Residence for a very nice home-cooked lunch with Alex and his wife. After another nap and a quiet dinner at the guest house, we took a long walk around the campus. Monday was another quiet day. We went over to the staff room to see who was there for tea. There was no tea (it’s reading week before final exams), but Nirmal was there with a doctoral student, so we had a lovely long chat that could have gone longer had lunch-time not intervened. It was a good chance for Virginia to catch up with Nirmal after his stay at our home last spring. After lunch it was time to pack and nap (again!), walk over so Virginia could meet Gabriel’s daughter, and then head to West Tambaram with Gabriel to visit the tailor. The khadi fabric we bought before our trip west was now soaked and washed (to get the shrinking done before the tailoring!), and we left instructions for shirts and slacks for Virginia and for two new kurtas for me. I’ll have to carry them all home myself in December, but they should make a nice birthday present for Virginia!

Sadly, we had to drop Virginia at the airport last night (Monday). It was an absolutely lovely couple of weeks that confirmed just how much I left behind to come to India for these four months. We are past the midway point now. Virginia arrived after 8 weeks apart, and two weeks later we are passing the 10th week. With 7 more weeks to go, it all sounds manageable, but now my room, the guest house, and the MCC campus are filled with wonderful memories of Virginia as well. It remains to be seen whether that will make these last (less than) two months easier or harder! Right now I’m very tender.

Virginia hoped to see some rain while she was here, but we saw none at all. Rayson said there had been a shower overnight in Cochin, but it wasn’t much of one. Everyone here in Chennai has been longing for the cooling effect of the monsoon, not the early summer southwest monsoon you always hear about, but the northeast, autumn monsoon that the eastern seaboard relies on for most of its water. With unusually hot temperatures well into October, everyone is especially eager to see the rain. I worried that heavy rains might keep Virginia from flying out on time (though more time with her would not have been a terrible thing!). Well, there was no rain last night to impede Virginia’s departure. After she left I heard thunder in the middle of the night, but no rain here. But today … when I came out for lunch I saw that the sky was unusually dark, and two minutes later, down came the rains, with lots of thunder to boot! It cleared out after about an hour, a mild start to the monsoon, perhaps, but a portent of things to come, with lots more rain in this week’s forecast. The plants need it, the people need it, and we all long for the cooling the rains will bring! And some of us also long for a December trip back home!!