Kochi - exporing the spice trade and the imperial legacy

Well, I've decided to "reward" you with another post since I've been so long in not writing. This one you get many pictures too (yay Kochi for fast internet). Firstly, I am encluding a picture from the Keralan backwaters. I took a boat to get to the ashram, and from that boat I saw many wonderful sites. The backwaters, by the way, are actual backwaters, not just metaphorical ones. For almost 700 km along the coast of Kerala there are these intertidal lagoons which have been carved into a massive network of canals. Villages are interspersed throughout them (like the one in which Amma grew up), and all throughout them there are these cool huge cantilevered Chinese fishing nets. Perhaps I'll put a picture in later. Anyways, I liked this guy sailing down lagoon as we came up. By the way, there's a big market for houseboat cruises on these backwaters. I believe lonely planet has called it "one of the ten things to do before you die". I think that that may be hyperbole, but indeed it looked fun. I decided not to do it since I believe that it would be an experience best had in a group, both socially and financially.

Next to beatiful Kochi (Cochin) which I explored today. The Portugese came to India first before all of Europe, and they also left last. This was one of their settlements, an island right off the coast making a great harbor for the spice trade. I hope to tour some Portugese history tomorrow, but today I beelined for the thoughtfuly named "Jew Town". That's right, "Jew Town". I thought - this is a place, as a New Yorker, I want to visit (my Israeli friend Nama at the ashram said being a New Yorker made me honorarily half-Jewish)! There was a really cool synagogue there dating from the 1340's. Jews came much earlier actually, some suggesting a mass exodus around the time of the Romans burning and sacking temples in Jerusalem, etc. Interestingly, the Jewish settlements along this western coast of India have all been in decline since the formation of Israel, because of the desire for people to emigrate and live in a Jewish state. All this makes me want to go to Israel even more, because it must be so interesting with all these people from across the world living there. Anyways, I digress. But I did want to take a picture for all you folks back in NYC. Also interesting about Kochi is the slightly more European feel to the place. Walled blocks with little gateways to courtyards, old old trees, as many kids playing soccer as cricket (usually cricket is king), and good coffee and croissants. Supposedly you can get wonderful food here (which I am about to investigate).

My last picture is of a cat on a tree. But look how oddly shaped is this tree? This is the kind of photo us urban forestry-types take on our vacations and think is fascinating, only to have most of our friends at home is an urban forestry look at it and say ... and? The impact of pit grown trees, but when the pit is above grade.... exciting! Tomorrow I look more around here - perhaps see Vasco de Gama's grave (Jim can you remember the import of Vasco de Gama's voyage?), and then i am flying to Mumbai to catch up with the time lost as I lingered at the ashram. This is a big country, and getting around is not easy. Turns out the train corridor through ever-popular Goa and up to Mumbai is all booked, so I'm flying. It seems so decadent after all my 34 rupee or 7 hour train rides (almost $90 or 3700 R to fly up there). But that should give me time to see the caves at Ajanta, which I've wanted to see since seeing that E.M. Forster movie. Hopefully I won't faint (like in the film). Ajanta is actually a great example of Gupta era cave painting, and the Guptas were perhaps the greatest empire India has ever seen. A golden age. More on that later (I read alot of Indian history at the 'ram [my new pet name for it]).

I think I mentioned earlier that Indians have taken bureaucracy to a new level, almost an art form. I have been observing this in the train system. The other day, to get on my train from the ashram, I had to wait in line for 50 minutes to find out that the train I wanted wasn't possible. There were 12 or 13 people in line, each of them taking 4-5 minutes to deal with. There was one line, in a concrete room, a wall full of reservation windows, all of them closed but for one. All these windows were behind a metal grate, and behind the windows was also put up a cloth to keep people from looking in. When I got to the front of the line I looked past the teller to see what must have been his supervisor sitting at his desk. Looking intently at a paperweight, turning it over and over again in his hands. Occasionally looking up at the window. This system seems to have had an effect on Indians. Lines are things to be cheated. If you can cut, it seems that the going ethic is to "go for it". The one exception is for women, who seem mostly to get their own line. As a good cue-ing westerner I can find all this very disconcerting. Ah, well, so it goes.

Bye,

John