Paradise

So Cochin (Kochi) was just a way station on the way to my hotel on the backwaters. It is supposed to have a beautiful old fort and an old section of town called "Jew Town." I had hoped to get over there but a combination of exhaustion and eagerness to get to the hotel prevented me from doing so.

I hit the road at noon for a one hour drive to the boat landing to get to the hotel. This was my first daytime experience of Indian roads. Organized chaos would be an apt description.
Mostly the result of the vast array of vehicles -- bikes, motorcycles, auto-rickshaws, cars, trucks, buses -- sharing the two-lane road, all going at different speeds. Plus, people walking, dogs, cats, and the occasional cow. Complete with a system of honking that seemed pretty effective in preventing crashes. It was not particularly scenic, but we eventually turned onto a back road and drove past some coir plantations and finally arrive at Lake Vembanad, where a boat took me over to the hotel.

A word here about the backwaters. Samantha asked why I chose to come here. Mostly because I wanted to start somewhere sort of resorty to get over my jet lag and acclimate myself to India. The backwaters are a series of interconnected lakes, rivers, and canals, along which are a bunch of small farming and fishing villages. The big thing to do there is to stay on a houseboat and just cruise around. I didn't do that, because the prospect of a three-to-one staff to guest ratio made me sort of uncomfortable.

Instead, I stayed at a really nice hotel in my own little bungalow complete with its own pool and a hammock overlooking the lake. (To give you a sense of how nice it is, Paul McCartney had stayed in my room.) The hotel was on an island so there really wasn't much to do except go on the occasional boat ride to see some of the villages, and go to the ayurveda center for massages etc, and eat. That was perfect for me, as I mostly just read (4 books in 3 days) and slept at odd hours.

It really was beautiful, with lush tropical vegetation and so many birds that it got loud at times.