After face-to-face immigration for India in the Glazer Lounge (Deck 7 dining room for Faculty) for the entire shipboard community. The entire ship has to go through before they'll let anyone off the ship and it was taking a while. We didn't get off the ship till about 11am. I planned to spend the day walking around and shopping with the Lifelong Learner Doug, but the night before it turned into with Ally, Kyle, and Rachel because they wanted to do the same thing, then finally that morning it turned into also Eric, Tami, and Grace at the last night. So the eight of us got off the ship and they had dancers welcome us and put the little dot on our foreheads. We headed outside of the gates where the security guards had to check our copy of our passport and landing card that we got at immigration that morning. We needed both of those things to get back on the ship anytime after that.
Once we walked out of the gates, we were flooded by Indian men offering us tours and auto-rickshaws. We were able to get down the street without agreeing to anyone and just saying no, no thank you, but once we got to the end of the street none of us knew what the plan was from there so we stopped and were immediately flooded by auto rickshaw drivers (about 20), tapping our shoulders, pulling on our arms, and yelling prices at us. We got in a circle and I kept on telling the drivers hold on and wait a minute. Kyle said that there was one calm guy that said he would take us around for $1 per auto rickshaw and that we would take two to the market. We said yes and hurriedly followed them to their auto-rickshaws. They were tiny! 3 people could sit down, but one person had to sit on someone's lap. The driver offered for us to take another rickshaw for the same price, but we refused to pay for another one and he eventually said okay it'll be free. I think it's because the weight was too much for that auto rickshaw. Kyle, Rachel, Tami, and Ally did the same and got into another rickshaw, so we had 4 altogether.
We made our way to the market! =] We took pictures of each other in our auto rickshaws and they were differently decorated on the inside with fringe and different upholstery. The one Doug and Grace were in was purple and black and painted pretty elaborately. An auto rickshaw is pretty much a moped with three wheels and a passenger cabin built behind it, but their pretty speedy. The drivers kept on weaving in front and in back of each other like we were racing. The driving is pretty crazy in India like it was in Ghana. You pass a car or another rickshaw whenever you can even if it's really close and you honk A LOT. We were driving for a while towards south side of Willington Island and stopped once before crossing the bridge over to Fort Kochi. We didn't actually know we were going to Fort Kochi till we were already there. We stopped on the side of the road and we were a little confused because it did not look like a market and there were a couple shops that had car parts and the other had little house trinkets. We walked in the back of them and the drivers said it was a clothes washing place. There were about 6 different people actually washing the clothes and whacking it against the rocks which is how they wash it and also lines and lines of clothing lawns. Lastly, they had some people ironing clothes on a stone table with heated coconut shells that are put into traditional irons. We got back in the auto rickshaw and though we were on our way to the market now, slight detour. Buutttt nope! No market for us! We went to an Organic Spice Market where they literally had baskets and baskets full of different spices, spices hanging on the wall in long packets, and teas and masala mixes on the tables. I ended up buying some tea pouches and that makes 7 cups of tea for every 1 spoonful. It was a bit pricey, but I knew they would be a pretty good quality there and we went to the sari store next door that was very expensive.
We stopped at one more shop that was a clothing, trinket, and carpet shop. It was fairly expensive and Rachel had a hard time choosing a tapestry and seeing if the price they were offering us was expensive or not. That was the first tapestry shop we've been to so we weren't sure what the standard price was for one of them. She ended up buying it because she loved it so much. We were getting pretty hungry so they took us to this restaurant nearby. Yes, the SAME rickshaw drivers were still taking us around. Surprise surprise, SAS students were at every place we went to up until that point and they were there are the restaurant. We figured out that the rickshaw drivers take tourist to certain shops and restaurants and they get commission if we buy items or food. I ordered chicken biriyani and garlic naan. I ordered the "non-spicy," butttttt of course it was super spicy. I could only eat one piece of chicken before I started to sweat =[ Sad I know. I just ate the rice around it with naan. The naan was sooo good! Its like a chewy bread that's good with anything! The whole meal was really cheap and mine came out to about 200 Rupees which is about 4 dollars and our entire bill for the 8 of us was about 1835 Rupees, which is about $37.
Once we finished paying, we exited the restaurant and decided that we would tell the drivers that we really wanted to go to a market now. They said they were first going to take us to a open view area and a shop that has 3 floors of things to look at, so we reluctantly agreed only because of the open view at the place. We got there and went straight up to the top floor and it wasn't the greatest view of the world, but it gave you a peek of the side streets and people lived nearby so their colorful saris were drying on clothes lines which made it great views (and photography opportunity) We headed down to the 2nd floor and started to look at the tapestries and clothes they had. I asked how much for a tapestry that was about 3 feet by 5 feet and he said 7500 Rupees! Which is $150!! The store was just all around very expensive and I ended up buying a couple of things there. Tami told the drivers please lets go to an "open air market" and we went along and stopped at these 3 little shops and the driver said that it's "open market!" lol ohhh myy. I'm still not sure if he was taunting us, or if he seriously thought this is what we meant by "market." In either case we went inside and just looked around. They had this one cool perfume shop that we looked at before we left and it had cool little perfume cases all spaced out and Ally started to look at different perfumes. I smelled the Jasmine one and it was amaaazzzzinnngg! Ally got some in whatever looking case that she like and the shopkeeper filled it right up and it was pretty cheap for perfume that would last a long time.
We agreed to go wherever the drivers were taking us next because we were convinced that there were no open markets in Kochi or at least Fort Kochi. We went to another sari store and our goal the entire day had been to buy pants that we called Aladdin pants, but we knew they weren't actually called this. We asked one of the ladies at the store and they said they're ali bubba pants and they had them at another store. A man hurried out the door to go grab some and we were happy that we finally found a place that had ali bubba pants. I bought a couple planning to wear one of them during my Agra and Jaipur trip over the next 4 days. By that time it was about 5:00pm and Grace had to get back in time for a SAS trip to a Welcome Reception held by local students in the area. Doug and I wanted to head back as well because our Agra and Jaipur trip was leaving at 3:30 the next morning. Kyle, Rachel, Tami, Eric, and Ally decided to stay and go to a Kathakali performance which is a traditional dance and they were gonna go early to see the performers put their make-up on before the show. I wanted to go, but knew that I should get back and I was thinking about trying to go to the welcome reception because I heard there are performances there too. The 3 of us headed back tot he ship and the driver dropped us off and we were wondering the entire day if the rickshaw fare was still US$1 or if they would up the price when they dropped us off because they took us around the entire day. Doug ended up paying the guy $2 and then he asked for a tip and Grace gave him another dollar. He looked a bit disappointed, but we just walked away back up the road to the ship.
We got back, said our goodbyes and I headed back to my room and pretty much just dropped my things off in my room and headed back upstairs to wait at Tymitz Square (which is a common meeting place for people and is the main spot before people leave the ship) to see if I could get on the Welcome Reception trip. Apparently a lot of people wanted to get on and there was a lot of room on the buses so i signed up for a ticket and hopped on a bus. The drive was about 15 minutes and we got to this nice looking hotel, we walked in the back of it past their parking lot and saw a courtyard area with their trees all lit up and tables, chairs, and a stage set up as well as a buffet line. We received the customary Indian greeting which was the dot on our forehead out of this paste-like substance (I'll find the name someday). Cassie and I headed to grab a seat in front of the stage and we saw that there were little tables set up with items that were being sold. We found out that there was henna too and went to go stand in line. Throughout the night there were different college students coming up to us, introducing themselves and asking about us and telling them a little about themselves. The only person I really got to talking to was a girl named Afshan who was a graduate student at a university nearby studying tourism. She had a really interesting life that she told us about. She had just got married a month before and it was an arranged marriage. I had heard about this before coming to India from Cibi (an Indian SAS student) and also from Gender and Society class. It was an arranged marriage and her family has known her husband for a while and asked Afshan if she wanted to marry him, Afshan agreed and had a small Indian wedding shortly afterwards. She had never met him before and agreed to marry him! Having a small Indian wedding was quite different from a usual Indian wedding because they usually go all-out for an event like this. Sometimes families spend their entire annual salary on an wedding and the guest list could have thousands have people in attendance. She's only 22 years old and her husband is 27 years old. When I met her she was gonna graduate in a week and then afterwards she was going to move to Singapore where her husband works. She would find a ob there once she got there. It was interesting to hear about her life and how her life is so accelerated compared to the US.
Grace and I got henna tattoos on our hand and watched the dance that they performed while we waited in line and then hurriedly got dinner before it closed. It was awesome food with Dosa, Idli, and a few stews. I quickly ate so that I could check out what they were selling and I bought a few things in a few minutes before it was time to get back on the bus and head back to the ship and get back by 10pm. It was really good timing when we left because it started to rain. I got back to the ship, showered, and quickly got to bed before I would have to get up 4 hours later. Off to Delhi tomorrow!
Miho =]
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