kochi on...

hello sweeties,
i am finally feeling the urge to write a stream of something like consciousness travel journal to ya. i spent the entire day today being intentionally lost. for those of you who know me well, you can nod your head with understanding. basically, i needed to take a long walk & think.
this trip has been full-on. there is hardly a moment when my senses are not being fully engaged. & this sunday morning i woke up to the sound of catholic mass from the basilica directly across the street from my guesthouse. i had slept in (yes, sleeping til 8am is now considered sleeping in!) because james left this morning at 4am for the airport & so i collapsed back into a sound sleep after wishing him a safe & peaceful journey home. it felt odd not waking him up for a change...& i will miss him being here a lot. but i somehow managed to motivate & wander over to witness the strange sight of women in saris making the sign of the cross & then over to the chinese fishing nets to see the fisherman pulling up the ancient nets using a rock & pulley method that seemed religious in it's own way. i had brekky with the locals (all men & all staring) & nothing starts off my morning quite like the warmth of my highly sweetened & rather caffeinated morning chai coupled with something savoury & greasy. the parotha & channa i mean, not the men!
i had a long sit at a very mellow art cafe to try & figure out my next move but of course by the time i was ready to roll the train station reservations booth was closing & everything seems booked anyhoo so now i'm contemplating flying to mumbai & then praying that i get a seat on a train to a'bad from there by the 14th. this of course means that i will skip seeing any more of the south so i'm a bit torn.
but perhaps it is time for this part of my journey to end.
my long meandering walk took me through the christian area full of decorative star lamps & apartments with names like "pious place" & then on to the moslem area full of green & white minarets & the smell of roasted cashewnuts & sandalwood oil. i never made it to the jewish quarter today because i got waylaid at a couple of art galleries & hung out with some very interesting local artists/photographers/political activists. the save periyar river movement is a big cause here & so a lot of the art & writing around town is about that. i bought a couple of small pieces of art there & a book written by a tibetan refugee & mentioned to them how the shop reminded me of resistencia bookshop in austin, tejas. it felt like home.
this internet cafe is feeling like home now. i feel like everytime i get on a computer it takes far longer than i intended to write even a short bit. i wanted to tell y'all about james' first night in madras when we wandered into a charities first anniversary celebration & got to hand out school uniforms, or the sound of hundreds of chisels striking against rock at all of the stone carvers' shops in mahabalipuram, or perhaps the feel of the wind dreading my hair as we zoomed past ancient temples on a shiny new motorbike, or the serendipity that was running into my friend simon cooper & his partner marian at the top of a rock temple in trichy after more than ten years, or the sight of thousands of hindu pilgrims dressed all in black or orange or white streaming out of the temple in madurai that looked like a giant pastry made of gods & goddesses. of the day or two spent in shock in a hotel room with cnn/bbc when we finally got the news of the tsunami (two days later!) of trying to get a hold of hannah & mansoor & seeing them waltz right up to us at a cafe after just spending the night in the the same hotel (& next door in fact) of finally getting sand stuck in between my toes again & the amazing trainride game of knockout whist we played with some cute indian kiddos & the smile of the tibetan boy that greeted me every morning with a "hello goodbye!' or the gorgeous house by the sea that we stayed at that came complete with a trip to the funkiest magic show ever to ladies waiting rooms at train stations that were actually speakeasies to mosquito attacks from hell to water lilies guiding our canoe to sunsets that looked like actual postcards to a mountain busride that left me slightly nauseus & exhilirated at the same time to the sight of wild boar & sambar & otters at periyar lake to cheeky monkeys in treetops to long lazy walks through spice infused streets in kumily to even longer busrides to here. now. where emotions are high & time is suddenly run out. & that is all just the last few weeks. my time with my family was an amazing & intense time that i will share with y'all later.
'k, hope this note finds you well. i am off ta bed now.
keep sending me news of your lives. i love reading it!
love
ish