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Sweaty!
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
I am still in Kerala but out of the cool hills and into the hot and busy city life of Kochi. Reuben and I helped his parents pack up their house and we set off Monday around noon. We stopped by Sasi’s Tea House for one final chai. Sesi makes the best tea. First you boil half milk & 1/2 water with a little ground cardamom. Once it boils you add the black tea and let it sit. Then you add sugar and strain. Then you begin to mix with two separate containers from grand heights. You hold each cup an arms distance apart and pour the liquid back and forth without spilling a drop! This helps make the chai frothy and oh so delicious.
After that we headed to Munnar for lunch. I had my usual vegetable Talhi meal with rice and various spicy curries. We drove on through the rolling tea region. It was a much faster and cooler ride this time since we were in an AC taxi instead of the local bus. The roads are very windy there. The roads are filled with more eager, horn-blowing, crazy drivers. After about 2 hours we got into the outskirt of the ecity of Kochi. We almost hit a moped who was trying to cross the raod, three busses, 2 cars, and we dodged a few cows. I tried to just keep my eyes off the road.
Kochi is a big city with oodles of stores and mounds of garbage. They don’t have land fills here. Perhaps they think it will all just bio-degrade. They don’t recycle or have trash facilities. So they burn everything. I have to admit that they do reuse quite a bit. You’ll see food wrapped in newspaper or banana leaves.
Reuben and I went to the post office to mail a package home. Easy, right? Here were the steps:
1. Find a box to mail your stuff in. (found one at a near by shop)
2. Take a ride in a rick-shaw on busy and HOT city street to the post office.
3. Cross the street to a tailor shop. There they will measure your box and sew some material around the package.
4. Go back to the post office.
5. Try to write the address on the cotton material, which does not work.
6. Walk to the book shop and buy a marker for 7 rupees.
7. Go back to the post office and mail the package. (we got a good deals because the man behind the counter made some phone calls and we managed to get it ground instead of air)
8. Ride the rickshaw back to the hotel. Take your 3rd shower of the day.
It actually was quite fun. I was smiling in disbelief. It took us a little over an hour and the rickshaw ride only cost us 40 rupees (about $1) I gave him 100 rupees to the driver for all of his hard work. 
Posted: 04.20.2010
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