Munnar, Kerala

skin hooks
Originally uploaded by helen beeson

Six hours from the coast into the Western Ghats (mtns) we hopped off the bus into a parade and discovered what serious religious devotion can look like here. Two men were swinging through the air about ten feet up, their bodies suspended in the air with lines attached to metal hooks stuck through the skin on their backs and legs and attached at the other end to a giant pulley five feet above them, the whole contraption pulled by a small decorated tractor and surrounded by people yelling and chanting along with the swinging man. Following them up were women with hooks attached to lines in their backs, dancing wildly as if puppeted by the man holding the ends of the lines. A group of men drummed, costumed children danced, women carried decorated umbrellas, a few women danced with six foot long metal poles stuck through their cheeks, and long rows of women in beautiful sarees struggled to pull huge wooden floats by giant ropes.

The next day was normal - as if all the days before it forever had passed uneventful, like nobody had been out of their mind on faith the day before. We rented a moto and followed fancy Bombayite couples and their drivers to the sites, snaking higher up the mountain through lush tea estates that cover all but the very vertical of land, a stark contrast to the otherwise dry hills. In town we fell in love with an assortment of charming mini-dhoti-sporting older men over ginger chai, soda water, one hand sewn sack (the standard box for mailing), and peas masala. We threw around our few words in Malayalam as much as possible, exclaiming "beautiful!" or "beautiful place!" as often as possible and savouring the smiles it received.

village party #3

Trichur, Kerala

We came here because the lonely planet calls this city "the cultural cherry on the festival cake" and an Australian woman we liked said she saw elephants out the train window here. We had lost the ability to cast good interviews or care after a day of moving cities and our inquisition of the late-night chai man had gone nowhere - "which country? why do you come?" "we heard there was a party! where's the party at tomorrow?" we get nothing but a bewildered look. In the morning we head to the tourist office (which are surprisingly helpful here, mostly for translating the local newspaper). They give us our VIP pass for the night - a slip of paper with a village name written in malayalam on it (where there is a festival, of course). That evening we show it to various bus officials to get on the right bus and then a few women on the bus. They designate one of them for us to follow, so when she gets off we get off. We find a street vendor and resort to our newfound way of getting what we want in this sort of dining establishment: poking around in all their covered pots and pans and pointing at what we want. Delicious peas masala omelette. Even the cheapest food here is filled with fresh herbs and whole spices.

The temple the party is held at is decked out like what I imagine one of those pink floyd light shows would be like, with flashing constantly changing bright red and green patterns covering its roof. It turns out it's the first day of a 7-day festival, but tonight is just the religious part. We are again amazingly treated as the guests of honor. An older man welcomes us and says he speaks for many others who, he says, are embarassed they can't speak english to welcome us themselves (no, no, we say, our fault). We are befriended by adorable misbehaving boys who tell us their names are frog, chimpanzee and "godfather". We teach them to say cool and they teach us about Ayappa, the son of Brahma, to whom their temple is dedicated. The leader of the puja ceremony comes out and gives us sandalwood paste to smear on our foreheads and delicious banana rice served on a banana leaf, amazingly kind despite us crashing his elaborate ceremony. We think about leaving but the boys say we have to stay for the fireworks. They sound like bombs, with no sparkly lights, but everybody stares at the sky in wonder while Lauren and I cower against the cement wall in surprise and fear. Very strange. We miss the last bus back to Trichur, but we didn't care enough before to find out when it was, figuring it would work itself out. The few rickshaw drivers there are don't seem interested at all and mumble something about a bus a little ways away. So it's coming? We sit down and watch a group of 15-16 year old boys clustered around a motorcycle and decide there's no harm in asking. You take us to Trichur? We smile big smiles. Peer pressure works in our favor and soon we scoot away, leaving the boy's astonished friends in our wake. The moon hangs half-full and heavy through the jungle canopy and the air is delightfully warm as the three of us swerve slowly towards the bus stop a few km away (aha!). The boy is nervously silent and won't take any money for gas, adding to our list of things gifted to us that day (including having lauren's pants taken in - the tailor refused any payment, saying it was nothing, just zip zip!). This is an amazing country and we are lucky lucky girls.

Hassan train station, Karnataka

boys at the train station wearing our things
Originally uploaded by helen beeson

This blog is not chronological. I'm sorry.

We were befriended at the train station by these little boys and their mothers. We thought their mothers were asking for food, or money for food, but really they had food and wanted to make sure we had eaten lunch! They wanted us to take a picture of them so we put lauren's hat and my sunglasses on them. Soon the little boys and our laughter had drawn a crowd of about 100 and the police came with his stick to yell at us. When the train came, the mothers grabbed my hat and had it passed through the crowd through the window into the train and somehow that trick managed to reserve us seats. We ended up giving them both our straw hats and we had to get funny baseball hats in Mysore (no straw hats), and now everybody asks me if I play cricket.

Kannur, Kerala, India

gokarna street
Originally uploaded by helen beeson

I awake at five to the call to prayer blaring out of the loudspeaker of the mosque across the way. As static-riddled as it is it sounds so beautiful, I think, just loud enough to overcome the whirring of the ceiling fan in our too-hot hotel room. In only three days Kerala has convinced us of its magic. Karnataka was beautiful, fascinating and welcoming as well (that's where the photo was taken) but never have I been in a place where the people are as happy and proud of where they're from as Kerala. We came into Kerala on a bus ride that felt, for two out of the four hours, like a ride at an amusement park. It was down a one-lane, two-way road ("highway") down and out of the mountains that was so destroyed by the monsoons we were shocked they even run bus service on it. "At least it's not boring" we said to each other, as we held on to the seats in front of us. A little later, once we had gotten to reasonably flat ground, we were shaken out of our sleepiness to see a procession we were trying to drive through. It was a theyyam, we realized - a pre-hindu ritual with music and dance - and this one had giant cylindrical colored domes being carried on sticks in front of many women in white carrying candles. There was another around the next bend, except this one was headed by a man dressed as a giant peacock on stilts! It was so beautiful and in our sleepy dreamstate felt like we had fallen into another world. These theyyams happen every night between November and May, so we've made it to two more since then. The first one had a giant dancing cow, another peacock, and a monkey, and a lot of colorful dancers. It was more of a performance, not a procession, and there was a large audience. Last night we went to one in a village some 14 km outside of Kannur. It was a theyyam adapted to syrian christian faith. We were quickly given candles stuck through cardboard with a box of colored tissue paper around it and told to run up to the front of the procession. The procession went for miles, glowing colors winding through the jungle on a small path through a village. It was an amazing melding of the ancient and modern, of pagan and christian symbolism. It was headed by a group of men in dhotis drumming and dancing, and bringing up the rear was a giant virgin mary float covered with flashing lights and blasting bollywood music, all the while adolescent nuns in the middle chanted in malayalam (the local language in Kerala). A very different kind of Christ revering.

Yesterday, before the theyyam, we went to the beach in town. We wandered back from the beach through the shrubs towards what looked like might be a public bathroom to change into our sarongs (everybody was bathing in their saris). We realized we had walked into a funeral as we saw people building a fire on top of a body. Oops, sorry. Whoa. What an intense way to say bye to your loved one.

Other highlights:

- Gokarna, Karnataka - old man with no pants delivering milk in a reused soda bottle (raw, fresh, local?) to the restaurant we were eating at while the owner fed chapatis to a sacred cow (necklace, tikka marks).

- Bylakuppe, Karnataka - renting a motorcycle from the brother of the watch-seller and exploring the Tibetan refugee settlements scattered amidst dry rice paddies. 60 feet tall gold-plated buddha, monks emailing, monks riding motorcycles, and monks talking on their cell phones!

nisene marks, aptos