I'm pretty sure I've said everything about India that I needed to say but for the sake of completeness here is our final leg:
After Mysore we headed to the relatively lovely and civilised town of Kochi. On our first night we went to watch Kathakali which is typical South Indian theatre dating back as far as the 17th century... Now, I can see how 5 hours of men skipping around in heavy make up and large skirts may have been entertaining back in the days before electricity, but we sat through a shortened 1 hour version I think we were more bemused than anything else! Although it wasnt really my cup of tea, I do have to give credit to the commitment and talent of those involved - it takes 5 years to train as a Kathakali performer and it is clearly a highly skilled art; every eye movement, face movement and arm movement has a meaning and tells a story without the use of words . The make-up takes one hour to apply and transforms ordinary men into mystical heroes and demons in an impressively striking way. They then dance around each other to the (rather irritating) sounds of drums and cymbals gesturing and rolling their eyes like possessed folk but to be honest if we didn't have a piece of paper explaining the story to us I'd have been completely bewildered and clueless as to the meaning of all that expended energy!
The next day we signed up for a boat tour of the backwaters - Cata had a go at punting around in our eco-friendly boat and turned out to be quite the pro. We stopped off to see a couple of local businesses - one that made lime powder out of clam shells, another made rope out of coconut husks and finally a spice plantation. For lunch we were invited to eat at an Indian wedding where we were gawked at by the guests and served a beautiful tasting typical South Indian meal.
Our next stop took us to the beautiful rolling tea plantations of Munnar which are so serene and calm that we felt as though we'd left India entirely which was just fine by us! Finally, a 5 hour train ride took us to Kovalam beach in the South of Kerala where we rested our bones even further, spent our final rupees on a few souvenirs and flew out of India like bats out of hell...
A short and boring post but I am SO relaxed right now that that's all the India revisiting that I can muster!
haha I can just imagine the pair of you in a train, opposite an Indian family, staring at you intently, waiting for an opening, a met glance, any gesture, to begin small (in the modest sense of the word) talk! Hope you had a good one in Kerala... ''God's own country'', as they say.
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