Monday, February 23, 2009
Fort Kochi
The bay is nice, but - again as far as I can tell - it has no cooling effect on the city. It's hot. Like, sweat though you only breath and blink, wake up sticky, thrice a day showering hot. As far as I can tell, the bay is also the sleazy motel of a whole continent of mosquitos. In my hotel room they mass around my mosquito net and quail before me as I rampage to the shower leaving a trail of bloody carnage in my wake.
Outside, the city is beautiful in a crumpling testament of past Dutch influence. Yesterday, I took the ferry that connects the varying parts of town. Fort Kochi is the historic district. Where decaying buildings surround narrow goat-filled streets. Men operating immense Chinese fishing nets line the waterfront. Their graceful counterbalanced rising and falling is watched by ice cream licking tourist - including myself.
I leave tomorrow - February 24th - and will travel via Banglaore to Hampi. The track will take two train treks and end in a - hopefully - short bus trip. Wish me luck!
Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary
Our guide got all excited. He waved us forward with as much caution as his enthusiasm would allow. Come. Come! The elderly Norwegian couple and I still puzzled over his change of pace and bewildered by the majesty of the forest surrounding us picked up our feet and within steps learned the object of our pursuit. Our clue - the source of the smell - lay in a steaming pile amidst plate sized impressions in the soft valley.
They're close. Come. Come! We scrambled up a rise and peered down. For things so large they blend remarkably well and in our excitement and camera fumblings we could barely make out their forms through the vegetation. Until a shift in the wind made her raise her head. She took the air, held it, and shook it until its bones hurt. A sound like something out of Jurassic Park rippled through the forest and left me looking for trees to climb as she began to move.
But then - I understood. She is Mom. The unconquerable, indomitable defender of the dearest prize. Our guide practically skipped as he rushed us to a safe distance. The calf is less than a week old. We spent the rest of the morning trying to get a glimpse. To capture the moments he curled his truck around her tail. Mom and baby joined their family group and we could no longer continue - too many heads to keep downwind of.
Elated we turned and followed our guide back to the entrance of the sanctuary.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
The Bus
I arrived in Ernakulam before the sun came up on Wednesday, February 18th. I had stayed at Sadhana Forest a bit longer than planned, but was now on the road again and headed to the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary near the town of Kumily. There is no train to Kumily - one must take the bus. I was pretty excited. As of yet, I hadn't made a long distance bus trip in India. So after the sun came up, I rickshawed it to the bus stand and climbed aboard.
Buses in India are unlike any buses I've ever been on before. Like normal, there are two rows of seats separated by an aisle. But on the left side of the bus the high backed padded seat seats two and on the right side - the driver's side - the seat seats three. Canvassed, accordion like shades drop down to cover the windows. When lifted and clipped into place however, two horizontal bars rather than glass separate you from the outside world. The door reaches the height of these windows, stopping well short of the bus's roof. It opens outward and when pulled swings an effortless 180 degrees as people push forward up the four steps between the road and the aisle. As this happens, the man charged with collecting fares rises in his brown uniform and starts after them. But before he passes the door, he pulls two cords. The fist connects the bus's roof with the handle of the open door and a quick tug closes it with a bang. The second rings a bell and signals the driver to gun it once again.
During the first bit of the six hour journey, this method of driving didn't seem too out of the ordinary. It was the fairly typical got-somewhere-to-go-fast urban driving I've become accustomed to. We overtook cars and trucks alike as the fare collector walked the aisle asking destinations, calculating fares, and handing customers tiny receipts printed from the contraption hung around his neck. But when the roadways changed from straight urban thoroughfares to twisted and winding mountainous lanes and we were still barreling along, I began to worry.
Never in all my travels have I encountered a group of people more reckless behind the wheel. The bus drivers that operate the stretch of tea covered hills from Kottayam to Kumily are either very brave or very stupid men. I sat on both my forward and return journeys torn between fear and reckless abandon as we overtook on blind corners, tilted perilously over non-existent guardrails, and made neck-jerking stops to avoid collision. No amount of banana chips and chai could make such turbulence enjoyable. How the fare collector manages to keep his down while being huddled to and fro in the aisle is beyond me. From now on, I plan to stick to trains as much as possible.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Sadhana Forest
I'm lying on a straw mat and writing on recycled paper. Bamboo supports the thatched roof above my head and through its structure I see green - the idle leaves of trees, blades of grass, fringes of palms. Birds beep and lizards chirp over the chatter of English and the sound of guitars, and - only very far away - do car horns sound. This is Sadhana Forest, an environmental project focused on forestry and sustainable living underway in Auroville, India. What Auroville is is difficult to say. At university, I heard it described as an ecovillage. My guidebook calls it an international community. But the handbook in Sadhana's library defines Auroville as a Universal Township founded in 1968, which has over the years come to operate many programs, some of which focus on sustainability. I've come to volunteer at Sadhana for two weeks. I began on Friday, January 30th and will finish Friday, February 13th. Today is Friday, February 6th and it feels very strange to write that my time here is half way through. Though the project is isolated and appears to support a very simple lifestyle, my days have been busy.
Work starts early here - 6:30 am - and ends around noon, Monday through Friday. Afternoons and weekends are free time, though there is always an abundance of things to do. Meals are vegan - which has been interesting - and prepared by volunteers instructed by rotating volunteer chiefs. The work is work - gardening, brush clearing, and tree planting - but it passes quickly and results are often instantly apparent.
Most days pass quietly, but with some unexpectedly pleasant event. Hummus night is Wednesday, an Eco film is shown on Friday night, and there are daily yogalates classes and workshops. One can also borrow a bicycle or - for those brave and accustomed to driving on the left side of the road - a moped and ride to the beach. Most days I find a way into town with other volunteers and to buy ice cream and grilled cheese - veganism is a bit too intense for me. My fondest surprise source of entertainment though - other than the availability of The Lord of the Rings series in Sadhana's library - was the invitation of all of Sadhana's volunteers to a wedding.
We left this morning at 5:30 am, for in this part of India wedding ceremonies apparently occur early. Yorit and Aviram, the Israeli couple who founded and currently run Sadhana Forest, are fiends of the groom. The drive took over an hour and came to and end at the steps of a temple complex illuminated by the rising sun. All twenty of us removed our shoes and ascended behind guests arrayed in the most beautiful embroidered silk saris. The temple stood a mountain of carved stone adorned with swinging and cackling live monkeys. Its pillared hall was just as abuzz with activity. As this was an auspicious day to be wed, a dozen ceremonies were going on at once. Bejeweled brides in red and white checkered saris and elaborate headdresses sat with their grooms on platforms with a priest. Cameramen and family members packed the hall.
What exactly happens in the ceremony, I still don't really know, but I do know that afterwards meal is served. Ours took place in a back hall, where we sat on benches and ate off banana leaves. Other families dined on the ground around the temple. We left full and happy, still adaze with the happenings of the hall gratefully clutching out parting gifts of coconuts.
The Sadhana Forest project has already proven very successful. When Yorit and Aviram arrived five years ago, they stepped onto a barren parcel of land. Now the residential area of the forest holds 10 dorms and 4 private huts, a great main hut which contains offices, a dining space, a library, a children's play room and a conference area, a kitchen, composting toilet and bucket shower facilities, a tool shed and green house, gardens, and a bike shed. Their intense water conservation measures and reforestry work have already greened the land significantly and raised the water table a remarkable six meters. Over 20,00 trees have already been planted and Yorit and Aviram hope this vital work will continue to replenish India's rapidly disappearing Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest - now the rarest forest type in the world.
For more information about Auroville, visit their website at www.auroville.org
Trains
From Kolkata, I've traveled to India's southernmost state by train. I spent some nights in Bhubaneswar and Chennai, b ut my goal was to reach Puducherry via rail and I succeeded.
The longest stretch was the twenty hour journey from Bhubaneswar to Chennai. I bought a second class sleeper ticket - my preferred class - and boarded the train around midnight. Each second class sleeper car holds 81 people, in groups of nine, three bunks high - two opposite each other and one along the aisle.
I was in bed number 11 - I believe - an upper berth. I found the well marked space without problem, stored my pack, removed my shoes - which is customary in a surprising amount of places: shops, internet cafes... - and shimmied up to my narrow platform before the train sounded its last whistle and rolled out of the city.
As with most of my Indian train trips, this one proved very pleasant. Throughout the day men carrying hot sweet milk chai walked the aisles loudly advertising their product. Lunch and dinner were served on trays and the three occupants of one "buck", fold down the middle man's berth and eat together on the lower, mixing, dipping, and scooping rice and dhal into their mouths with their hands.
My hand eating has vastly improved since my arrival, though I still feel rather sloppy. It is quite fun though. As is the fundamental lack of safety regulations that allows one to lean for hours on end out a moving train's open door. This, though, is also frightening - for a number of reasons. Picturesque none the less - India scrolls by.
As always, downsides do exist. I thought - until my most recent trip - that the roaches aboard the trains was the worst of them. From Chennai to Puducherry, however, I found that mice were - squeamishly - worse. The bathrooms are also not so grand as you can see the railroad ties through the hole below you as you do your business. On some trains a sign "kindly requests" that the facilities not be used while the train is in motion. I think to spare those brave souls that I've seen sometimes pass below train cars the ick of an unwanted shower.
Overall, however, I like the trains and still prefer them. And, as they seem to connect nearly every place in India, I foresee many travels on the rails in my future.
