Vaikom, India

... velour ceilings and a fan ...

The most popular trip was sold out -- boat rides through the islands.

We were told that they were trying to arrange more excursions, but the problem was finding enough small boats.

Since that was out of the question, my second choice was to visit a village.

Because I live near a small village in the summer and am always interested in what is going on there, I thought a small hamlet in India would be of equal interest to me.

Greg, Wyona, Moiya and David felt the same way so we signed  up for the same trip.

... river crossing on the way to the village ...

The ride to the village would be an hour, we were told.

Greg said afterwards how surprised he was, since an hour ride to a village seemed to us to mean that we would be seeing the countryside.

Instead there were stores and houses along the road, almost until we arrived at the village.

People were walking along the streets, families drove by on bicycles, and trucks whose cabs were psychedelic works of art were parked by the sides of the road.

... drumming before getting into tuk-tuks ...

We were met by village drummers.

And then we transferred to a tuk-tuk (auto rickshaw) for the rest of the journey to the village.

The transfer did not happen without resistance.

I have been warned so many times not to engage in conversation with anyone approaching me with an offer of a local tour, that I walked by the first 6 tuk-tuks, thinking it was my job to walk to the village.

I would have never made it in the heat.

Afterwards someone said, "The bus tour guide should have explained to us that we were to get into those vehicles."

I didn't agree because no one could get enough explanations to take care of all of the vagaries that happen along the way of such a trip.

... Moiya's markings begin to melt ...

... three sisters pause in the heat ...

I do not know which was more surprising to me of the following three things.

First a small boy motioned to me that I should put down my head, 

and he put a flower lei around my neck.

Then a woman came by and made a red mark on my forehead.

Then a huge cocoanut with a straw extruding out of the top was thrust into my hands.  

I could just hear myself thinking ... boy, this is already a lot of fun and we haven't even entered the village, really.   Three more hours of this.  I am going to die from happiness.

... a candid in the jungle ...

The general theme was to show us the village: a woman making clay pots, another woman weaving baskets, and a third preparing herbs to cure headaches. We saw a  man doing silver smithing; we watched women preparing lunches for their families.

... Am I in the picture? ...

I am having some trouble with the text of this post, since one part of the tour felt like we were going from station to station, as we would if we were going to see a group of students displaying their science projects.

On the other hand, there was this amazing feeling of being in the jungle, hearing the sounds of the birds, being overwhelmed by the humid air, observing the details of the jungle growth, walking on the dirt paths and turning corners around trees and walking over planks that crossed tiny streams.

... now everyone make a funny face ...

The little boy who had put the wreath around my neck followed me along, asking my name, practising his English on me.  Finally I caught on and asked him his name.

I began taking pictures of the flora and fauna, but their little faces were far more interesting to me.

Wyona said to me, "Where are the girls?  We haven't seen any of the girls."

"I noticed that too," I said.

Wyona asked one of the women where the little girls were.

And soon the little girls appeared -- so sweet, hanging onto their mother's hands.

I was carrying a worry that I would not be able to fully experience everything around me.

I was taking pictures of clay vases by the side of the road, of the washing hanging by the houses.

Why am I always taking pictures of that, I thought.  Venice.  Rome.  Egypt.  Alexandria.  Now India.  Is it because I want to see that invisible work of how people really live.

 

... Greg pauses in the jungle shadows ...

But somehow it is more than that. 

I want to see how they hang the bananas by the side of the store, where the little stream runs to, ask why there is only one bucket by the well

I am charmed by the 3-person toilet that has been set up for us. 

"You aren't going to use that," a woman said to me.

"Are you kidding.  I am trying everything whether I need to or not," I reply.

I am working at taking in every moment of this adventure. The village is working hard to show us how they live.  I want to do my part to take enough in that I can work out the bits and pieces I don't understand when I get home.

... serenity by the stream ...

When I saw this quiet stream running beside one of the paths, I thought it captured what the village must feel like when it is quieter ... not on display.

So beautiful, the cottage on the other side, the well tended paths, the hedges carefully planted and trimmed.

... a complimentary snack ... 

Coke or coconut shell with straw

Complimentary snacks -- that is what the tour guide told us about the L-shaped table.

Coke or cocoanut milk.

Your culture or ours.

I have been running my set of photos from the village on my desktop since I got home.

I stop each day to take another look at the magic of a small Indian village in the province of Kerala.

Arta

Vaikom, Kerala

The most popular trip was sold out -- boat rides through the islands.

We were told that they were trying to arrange more excursions, but the problem was finding enough small boats.

Since that was out of the question, my second choice was to visit a village. Because I live near a small village in the summer and am always interested in what is going on there, I thought a small hamlet in India would be of equal interest to me.

Greg, Wyona, Moiya and David felt the same way so we signed  up for the same trip.

... on the way to the village ...

The ride to the village would be an hour, we were told.

Greg said afterwards how surprised he was, since an hour ride to a village seemed to us to mean that we would be seeing the countryside.

Instead there were stores and houses along the road, almost until we arrived at the village.

People were walking along the streets, families drove by on bicycles, and trucks whose cabs were psychedelic works of art were parked by the sides of the road.

... village drummers welcoming the tourists...

 We were met by village drummers.

And then we transferred to a tuk-tuk (auto rickshaw) for the rest of the journey to the village.

The transfer did not happen without resistance.

I have been warned so many times not to engage in conversation with anyone approaching me with an offer of a local tour, that I walked by the first 6 tuk-tuks, thinking it was my job to walk to the village.

... Moiya's head marking begins to wilt ...

I would have never made it in the heat.

Afterwards someone said, "The bus tour guide should have explained to us that we were to get into those vehicles."

I didn't agree because no one could get enough explanations to take care of all of the vagaries that happen along the way of such a trip.

... a moment together in the village ...

I do not know which was more surprising to me of the following three things.

First a small boy motioned to me that I should put down my head, and he put a flower lei around my neck.

Then a woman came by and made a red mark on my forehead.

Then a huge coconut with a straw extruding out of the top was thrust into my hands.  

I could just hear myself thinking ... boy, this is already a lot of fun and we haven't even entered the village, really. 

... a candid in an Indian village ...

The general theme was to show us the village: a woman making clay pots, another woman weaving baskets, and a third preparing herbs to cure headaches.

We saw a man doing silver smithing; we watched women preparing lunches for their families.

... am I in that picture? ...

I am having some trouble with the text of this post, since one part of the tour felt like we were going from station to station, as we would if we were going to see a group of students displaying their science projects.

On the other hand, there was this amazing feeling of being in the jungle, hearing the sounds of the birds, being overwhelmed by the humid air, observing the details of the jungle growth, walking on the dirt paths and turning corners around trees and walking over planks that crossed streams.

... everyone's turn for a funny face ... 

The little boy who had put the wreath around my neck followed me along, asking my name, practising his English on me.

I began taking pictures of the flora and fauna, but their little faces were far more interesting to me.

Wyona said to me, "Where are the girls?  We haven't seen any of the girls."

"I noticed that too," I said.

Wyona asked one of the women where the little girls were.

And soon the little girls appeared -- so sweet, hanging onto their mother's hands.

I was worrying that I would not be able to fully experience everything around me.

I was taking pictures of clay vases by the side of the road, of the washing hanging by the houses.

Why am I always taking pictures of that, I thought.  Venice.  Rome.  Egypt.  Alexandria.

Now India.

I want to see that invisible work of how people really live.

 

... Greg pauses in the jungle shadows ...

But somehow it is more than that. 

I want to see how they hang the bananas by the side of the store, where the little stream runs to, ask why there is only one bucket by the well

I am charmed by the 3-person toilet that has been set up for us. 

"You aren't going to use that," a woman said to me.

"Are you kidding.  I am trying everything whether I need to or not," I reply.

I am still working at making this whole experience complete.

The village is working hard to show us how they live.

I want to do my part to take enough in that I can work out the bits and pieces I don't understand when I get home.

... capturing the serenity of the village ...

When I saw this quiet stream running beside one of the paths, I thought it captured what the village must feel like when it is quieter ... not on display.

... a complimentary snack ...

So beautiful, the cottage on the other side, the well tended paths, the hedges carefully planted and trimmed.

Coke or coconut shell with straw

Complimentary snacks -- that is what the tour guide told us about the L-shaped table.

Coke or cocoanut milk.

Your culture or ours.

I have been running my set of photos from the village on my desktop since I got home.

I stop each day to take another look at the magic of a small Indian village in the province of Kerala.

Arta

Tourist Photography

 ... out of bus window on the way to Vaikom, India ...

The fact that I can take my handheld camera, sit on a bus and out of the window, photograph the world as it is going by means a lot to me.

I take pictures and have them run on my desktop; every ten second they change.

... bicycle parts and frame ...
 ... on the back of man walking down the street ...

I run my trip over and over again, often wondering, “Did I really see that?"

But here it is on my screen.”

I am pretty well aware that the pictures are only invested with meaning for me, but what a delicious way to bring back images that are fading so quickly for me.

The color is there, that moment when I was amazed to see this comes back, and I get to study the background which I probably didn’t see at all when I took the picture.

I learned how to do bad photography when I was with Wyona on the 16-day train trip up and down the coast of England, Wales and Scotland.

... woman preparing food on the other side of the stream ...

Now I have been doing it on bus excursions, and find myself studying the people who walk along the streets when the bus stops at red lights.

I try to capture a traffic jam, the sunset, small markets along the street, colourful bill boards, trying to figure out if their images are commercial or political.

When we were in Viakom, I noticed that when I took a picture, if there was a child in it, they wanted to come over and see themselves.

When I saw a woman weaving a mat I had to capture her toes, holding the reeds firmly to the ground. I saw a woman at the side of a stream, preparing food.

She was cutting the tops and the bottoms of vegetables, or little fish, I couldn’t tell which.

I wanted one of the small metal rings a man was making and I seemed to need two of the simple nesting baskets a woman sat cross-legged. I have no idea why I send Wyona off to do my bargaining.

She is fast.

... weaving a mat ...

A look from me to her, telling her I want that, and she will change directions and go do the negotiating.

Her method seems to be to find a guide close by and have him be the go-between – how much does she want for one basket?

How much does she want for two baskets?

 ... Wyona having purchased baskets ...
... the chain of flowers  on her neck smells like gardenias ...
... note the red decoration on her forehead ...

 

If she can’t find someone who can do that, she goes right to the merchant and somehow it is possible for her to make trades of money and goods without knowing much language.

Fun.

Arta

Life in Vaikom

We had two tours in India. The first one was sponsored by the ship for Captain’s Club Members and those travelling with them. That is how Moiya, Dave and I spent our first day in Cochin. The evening ended with a show at a hotel. The sun was setting over the sea, chairs were set up on the hotel lawn, and before the show, proper, there was a demonstration about how emotion is interpreted through dance. When Moiya and I try to go back to that first day in India, we keep listing how much happened in that day. How could we have seen the Chinese fishing nets, the murals that capture the myths of the Indian gods, shopped on Jew Street, and kept our noses on the coach window as we saw India pass by us, block after block.

The next day we were signed up to see rural India. The catalogue description of the trip was short. “Located in the district of Kottayam, Vaikom is one of the oldest villages in Kerala and is a fine representation of rural life in Kerala. During your visit you will be able to walk through and see what life is like here on a typical day.” We had no idea that the following would happen. We were loaded into tuk-tuks that took us down the narrow roads and into the village. Ropes of flowers were hung around our necks, the smell of which I didn’t really process until I arrived back in the ship and was going up the elevator. “Oh, I had no idea of the smell of these flowers, until I got into this elevator,” I apologized to the other occupants who were riding up the shaft with me. “Don’t worry – it is fantastic – like gardenias,” they said. By that time the red mark that had been put on my forehead was smudged and I was looking for some quiet time to process an amazing day. I don’t know how to describe the feeling of returning back to the ship. Much of the time in the village I had been on the cusp of a good cry, but not the one that comes from sorrow. This emotion was wrapped up in the wonder of the village. I watched women weaving mats from reeds, their hands working deftly and their toes anchoring their work to the ground while they thatched the material that slipped up and down through their fingers. An old woman was weaving baskets. We watched, left to go see something else and I said to Wyona, I want to buy one of those baskets. Wyona slipped into her merchant mode, grabbed me, and then one of the tour guides who was standing idly by the side of the stream and asked him to find out how much for a basket. There was some price negotiations, and the purchase was finalized. Wyona wore the baskets on her head for a while. They will be my most treasured souvenir. Across a creek, a woman stood on some stairs by a canal, cutting her vegetables for dinner. Another woman, seeing my interest, paused to take the large pot off of her head and show me the fish she had caught, small ones – maybe 50 or so of them. I watched Wyona and Moiya play with the children who walked alongside the group – the boys wanting to know people’s names and where they were from. While other tourists were snapping pictures of houses, or of a woman making medicinal powder from bettle nuts, Wyona was snapping pictures little boys’s faces, and asking them where the little girls were. Did the village only have boys, she asked? I loved seeing the laundry on the lines, ducking under ropes or slipping around a tree to see the cocoanut husks shredded by a woman making rope. Clay pots were being thrown. The wheel was manually operated by another woman who sat cross legged on the ground, making sure it kept moving by rotating it with her hands. Three days and the pot would be dry. No need for a kiln. The weather was perfect. I could hear the birds in the trees. The jungle smells were delicious, new to me – perhaps the reason I missed the fragrance of the flowers I was wearing until I got back home. I have some lovely pictures, which I will post when I get more internet time. The boat is perfect in all ways, except concerning the speed with which I can send pictures up to a blog. Arta