The Kindness of Strangers

Anne and I have just returned to Cochin after a two-day side trip to the hill station of Munnar. The bus ride to Munnar was four and half hours, almost entirely uphill on a bus with the loudest brakes I have ever heard (cheers for earplugs), but it was well worth the journey as the countryside around Munnar was a fantastic, peaceful land of mountains and endless green tea fields. On our first day there we took another bus up even higher to hike around a place called Top Station where you are surrounded by shadowy mountain peaks and can see into the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu. We returned to our hotel room at the end of the day to relax and journal when I realized with a sinking feeling in my stomach that my prescription sunglasses were no longer in my bag. I wear my sunglasses all the time and since we are mostly traveling in the tropics, they are quite an essential thing to have along. I knew that I had last taken them off on the bus back from Top Station, so I decided to retrace my steps even though I already had little hope for finding them . . .

I headed out of the hotel and to the line of rickshaws outside (“rickshaw, madam? rickshaw, madam?”) and asked a man there to take me to the restaurant we had eaten dinner at. Along the way I managed to convey to him that I had lost my sun spectacles. After checking the restaurant and not finding them, I asked the driver to wait one more minute and I went to the nearby food stand see if I could find the rickshaw driver who had taken us back to our hotel earlier. There are over a hundred rickshaws in tiny Munnar alone, so this was definitely a long shot. At that point, my current rickshaw driver got quite into the search and started asking me all sorts of questions about the rickshaw I was in earlier: what did the driver look like? what was his name? what was he wearing? what did the dashboard of the rickshaw look like? how was the steering wheel shaped? what design were the seats? were there any decals or decorations in the windshield? These are not things that I typically take note of, especially at night, but he was so kind and earnest that I tried my best to answer. He then had me get back in and started zooming around the streets, asking other drivers if they knew where to find the rickshaw, and peering into everyone we passed. We didn’t have luck and eventually headed back to the hotel, at which point he offered to meet me at nine in the morning the next day to search some more. I politely declined (if they were in that man’s rickshaw from earlier, they probably would have flown out by now anyway), but gave him my first name and hotel in case he did somehow run into them the next day. I couldn’t keep the smile off my face as I walked away, it was a fascinating glimpse into the culture of rickshaw drivers and the man had just been incredibly nice and helpful.

Early the next morning I headed out to the station where we had caught the bus to Top Station the day before. A law of nature in India: when you don’t want a rickshaw, they are always around, and when you do need one, you can never find it. After waiting a few minutes a white “tourist vehicle” car pulled up across the street, so I decided to ask this driver for a ride. After telling me I should take a rickshaw and me explaining to him that there weren’t any, he told me he could take me to the bus station. I asked the customary question, “how much?” and he shook his head and said it would be free. Rather shocked, I got in and he did indeed take me to the bus station for free, and we had a lovely conversation along the way. He even offered to wait for me and take me back after I checked for my sunglasses at the station.

At the station I managed explain what had happened to the bus crew there and they told me that the bus I was on yesterday would be back again at 2:30pm. So Anne and I returned there that afternoon and sure enough, the same white and blue bus roared up, chock full of people, Hindi music blaring, with flowers strung in the windshield and Jesus picture surrounded by blinking Christmas lights hanging over the dashboard (we were told that 40% of the people in this area of Kerala are Christian). After working my way to the front of the bus, I approached the ticket man and pointed to my glasses and told him I had left a pair on the bus yesterday. He nodded and got on the bus, and reached into a brown box above a seat. And there, low and behold, were my sunglasses in their case, just as I had left them. I was so happy and surprised that I wanted to hug him, but that’s a taboo here, so I rather awkwardly attempted the namaste bow and thanked him again with what must have been a ridiculously large smile on my face. Sunglasses aside, I was amazed by all of the interactions that had led me to this point.

Before we started our travels three months ago, we were discussing nitty logistics such as where to hide our passports and how to avoid having our bags stolen. Anne had said that though it may seem naive, she hoped that we could rely on the goodness of people around the world. From Japan to India, this philosophy has so far really proven true. As creatures of habit, I think we naturally tend to fear and distrust what is different or unfamiliar to us, but one thing that our travels have shown us is how similar and kind – how human – people really are the world over. This point might also seem basic and naive in a world with so many social challenges and so much need, but it is one that I think would make a big difference if more people realized it.

Still Smiling,

Julie

Trains, Auto Rickshaws, Taxis, and More

So much has been fascinating so far about our travels in India, but perhaps transportation is what sticks out in my mind the most.  Since arriving in Mumbai and heading south over a week ago, we’ve had a chance to sample most forms of transport available here.  A run-down of our experiences so far:

Taxis – Upon leaving the Mumbai airport, we got into one of the many tiny black taxis that scoot around the city.  This particular ride we didn’t have to barter for as they use meters in the city, but elsewhere we play the game of finding a price that suits both us and the driver.  Generally the driver names a price; we cut it in half and then throw out more numbers until we come to a point of compromise from there.  We often find that pretending to walk away helps our cause.  Our first taxi ride in Mumbai to the area of the city we were staying in was long and eventful.  At 10pm the streets were still jammed with taxis, cars, trucks, the occasional cow, and various people pulling carts along the sides of the streets.  Honking here has a whole different meaning from home.  Drivers seem to honk whenever they approach anything in their way, mainly as a warning for that person or vehicle to watch out, and thus the streets are quite noisy as everyone is honking to everyone else.  So imagine many, many vehicles all driving along in a general direction, but not in any sort of lanes, with horns blaring all around.  Add in people bravely attempting to cross the street (even on highways no less) and it is quite an adventure.  It definitely makes Chicago traffic seem a bit tame.

Trains – Train travel in India is much more real than at home.  By that I mean that you have the option to avoid the sanitized, air conditioned compartments and instead choose a more organic experience in the sleeper class cars.  There the doors and windows hang open and the country air (and dirt) rolls in.  The journey becomes an experience as much as your destination.  As long as your shoes are off, it is quite acceptable to put your feet up on the blue vinyl bench seats.  Each compartment is pretty big and sits six people comfortably.  The aisles are filled with the call of “chai, chai, chai” and “coffee, coffee, coffee” as vendors walk around selling you just about everything you could need on a train journey.  Stops at each town are long enough that you can hop off the train, stretch your legs, and check out the scenery from the ground.  Then if you want to, you can have the excitement of waiting for the train to slowly start moving onward and then run up to it and jump on and hang out the door for awhile.  Our first train trip south to Goa was 12 hours and the second one 16 hours to Kerala.  Time passes lazily enough as you can sleep, read, chat with fellow passengers, drink endless amounts of chai, and stare out the window as the scenery rolls by.  Train travel also forced me to confront some of the realities of life in India, such as the fact that there really is no waste disposal system here.  You throw your trash out the window into whatever farm fields, villages, or rivers the train is passing.  This system probably worked well before the days of plastic, but today much of what is thrown out doesn’t get eaten by goats or disintegrate.  Anne and I have been trying to avoid using bottled water (we brought a steripen with us to sanitize tap water – thanks to Anne’s dad for that!) and other plastic disposables.  It definitely makes you more conscientious of your consumption habits.  I also remind myself that if we threw our trash out the train window in the US (well, that would be if we had trains), the mounds would be much, much higher than here.  We just hide our waste away well.

Auto Rickshaw – These are almost like smaller versions of taxis, with two wheels in the back and one in the front and no doors.  Quite useful on narrow streets and for traveling shorter distances.  In the north of India they have the more traditional rickshaws pulled by human power, but we haven’t seen any in the south.  So far I’ve witnessed two fights between auto rickshaw drivers whose vehicles have bumped into each other.  I guess that’s the alternative to auto insurance here.

Scooters and Motorcycles – I’ve only been on one so far in Goa, but they transport entire families in many cases, usually with a kid the front, the father driving, another child or two in the middle, and the mom hanging on and riding side-saddle gracefully on the back, her colorful sari or salwar kameez dress flowing in the wind.  Oddly enough only the driver seems to ever wear a helmet.

Walking – Perhaps the most dangerous way of all to get around, but also the way to see and experience the most.  Dangerous first of all because you have to watch out for traffic; here the constant honking comes in handy, but I still sometimes fear that my toes will get run over.  You generally walk on the street in India as sidewalks are sparse and of variable quality.  Even then one needs to watch out for random obstacles in the street.  In Mumbai I managed to step in a deep hole in the ground and cut my leg which has led to several interesting trips to Indian hospitals (The doctor who stitched up my leg warned that women should never walk and talk together at the same time!).  But walking is almost more dangerous as a female as you have to watch out for MM – Men and Mosquitos.  We got this useful acronym from Sabash, our friendly hotel manager in Cochin.  We had commented to him that we had met many male Indians, but not many females, and he said that it was because all the women were hiding inside from the men (true to a point I imagine).  In any case, the attention we’ve received so far has been harmless, though today one man decided to follow me down the street for a good ten minutes.  But walking the streets is a great way to get away from the tourist infrastructure in India and see people going about their daily lives.  Walking has also taken us away from the chaos of the main streets, to quite peaceful locations and into situations where we have met really kind people. 

We’ve also been on ferries and there are backwater punting boat and bus rides to come, but this entry is getting quite long and life awaits outside this internet café.  India so far has been an amazing land of contrasts, filled with experiences that are intense, beautiful, sad, and joyful as well.  Hopefully my ramblings about transport adventures have given a little glimpse of that.  I hope that this entry finds everyone reading happy and well!

From Cochin,

Julie

Life is good.

So, I clearly haven’t written in a while, but I assure you that there have been infinite things to write about. The farm experience in New Zealand was surreal and amazing, filled with some of the most genuine and interesting and intelligent and compassionate people I have ever met. Luthien has written quite a bit about that as far as the day-to-day tasks went, so I’d like to add a bit about the people we met down-by-the-river. And yes, it does include a man with a van, down-by-the-river, but also a Kiwi self-proclaimed Deadhead with a great little place called the Magic Hut…

Many of the evenings at Pakaraka Farm were spent by me chatting about life down-by-the-river with two wonderful Kiwi men filled with all kinds of crazy stories of the things they have done over their past 40 years of friendship and inspirational travel ideas. It was a great environment that definitely reminded me of hanging out with my parents and Mark and Mary up north, drinking beer and listening to great music. After moving around so much on our Tour-de-NZ, the farm was a perfect peaceful solution to cure my frustration at being trapped inside a white Toyota Corolla for too long. Harry and Jeanette were wonderful and inspirational, I felt more connected with the world again after getting my hands in the garden soil and after milking the House Cow, and I was always surrounded by good conversation or a peaceful place to read. And the swimming hole. Probably one of my favorite places on the earth so far; it made me fall in love with rivers again and want to read the passage in Siddhartha again about rivers.

It was also great to WWOOF at the farm during the same time that the Young Greens workshop was going on. My 50+ year-old friends James and Dick moved out of the Magic Hut for the season and about 30 or so young progressive New Zealand environmentalists moved in, holding thought-talks and campaign-planning meetings, and singing and playing guitar at night. They reminded me of how there is still hope for change and inspired me with their dedicated towards a common goal. It was also incredible to see their respect and admiration for Jeanette and to feel so lucky to have been WWOOFing for such a great couple on such beautiful land in the Coromandel Peninsula….

And now I am in India, finally feeling completely at peace in the south in beautiful Fort Kochi, Kerala, after a whirlwind of craziness in Mumbai and hippie overload in Goa. It is a world completely opposite of New Zealand, but I still love it. The colors and smells and people are so vibrant, sometimes too much so. I think I’d love to come back for a longer period of time, because our two weeks here is a good preview, but not even close to enough time. The food is amazing, the locals’ smiles and waves are reassuring (except when they come from too many men in the street), and being able to stop in and have a chai with friendly folks has been great. Julie and I are definitely living spontaneously and oftentimes we just look at each other in amazement regarding the days events– filled with new friends, beautiful views, and sensory overload.

Namaste,

Anne

City Mouse Goes to the Country

Realistically, the majority of the time at the farm was spent either swimming in the river (at least 3 times per day, often more) and picking piles of green beans from the garden to eat for all meals. However, every now and then, work with the animals would come up and Harry would patiently explain to me, who has never fed a chicken in my life, that you add small rocks to the chicken food to make the egg shells thicker (who knew?). Then I would skip down the hill shaking the plastic bucket of chicken feed and the chickens would run after me in a single-file line until we got to the chicken coop, where I would dump the food in the trough and shut them in for the night. It’s the simple pleasures in life, “they” say, but, really, the hilarious sight of a chicken running (”waddling” is probably a better word) as fast as she can down a hill may very well be enough to keep me on a farm for a very long time.Another notable task was herding a bull from one paddock to another farm across the road. After Jeanette, Anne, and I finally found the bull in the woods, we cornered him against the fence and then chased him down the hill, from one paddock to the next. By “chased”, I really mean that we chased him. In my Old Navy Jeans and Chacos, waving a rod sort of like a ski pole, we ran this giant bull down the hill, onto the road, across a bridge, and then eventually to the other farm…”adrenaline” doesn’t even begin to describe how great it felt.On one of the last days at the farm, when Anne and I were officially in charge because Harry had hurt his leg badly and was in the hospital and Jeanette had political stuff to deal with, Jeanette called us and told us to herd all of the sheep from the top paddock (about 50 sheep) to the “house paddock”. Given the size of the farm and the paddocks, this sounded like an incredible task, but we grabbed our herding rods and hiked up the hill to the paddock. The great thing about sheep, we soon realized, is that they really do run in packs and stay together no matter what, so after Anne had gathered all of the stray sheep out of the gorse patches (very awful, dense spiney plants) and I’d more or less pushed a few very old sheep towards the others, it was just a matter of convincing the sheep that their only option for running away was towards the open paddock gate by, again, running after them and waving our rods threatening.

The tasks that I did on the farm were pretty menial, but nonetheless very exciting for someone who hadn’t actually ever seen a sheep in real life. In addition, as I was running around the countryside chasing farm animals, there was a split second where I thought about the fact that on my trip around the world, on the other side of the world, I was chasing a bull down a hill- who would’ve guessed?

-Luthien

Finding My Dreams in New Zealand

After a two week road trip around the circumference of the South island of New Zealand, we took the ferry to the North Island and drove straight through in four days (stopping in Mordor and Mount Doom in National Park Village, a very small town in the middle of the North island), where Julie dropped Anne and I off at a farm in the Cormandel Peninsula and the drove to Auckland to catch her flight to Cairns, Australia. While Julie scuba-dived in the Great Barrier Reef, Anne and I lived on the farm of Harry and Jeanette, about 7km from the nearest town (Thames) but seemingly hundreds of miles from anything.

Harry and Jeanette quickly made us feel at home. With 30+ WWOOFers staying on their farm every year, plus a multitude of other people living in their house, barn, and sleep-out on any given day, they were accustomed to people inhabiting their space and making them feel like they were not imposing in the least. Harry is a 67-year-old retired sheep sheerer (used to be one of the top sheep sheerers in the region until an accident involving a sheep falling on him ended his professional career) who seemed soft-spoken for most of the day as he gave us instructions for the work day. Yet as we sat around the dinner table at night, conversation always escalated and suddenly we were learning everything there is to know about the New Zealand political system and environmental issues. Realistically, despite his proclaimed profession of farmer, Harry was the man to learn about New Zealand politics from. He is on the committee who interviews, chooses, and ranks Green Party candidates for the national elections that are held about every 3 years, which generally includes 100+ potential candidates that are narrowed down to about 50 candidates for the final ballot. Because NZ assigns Parliament members proportional to the number of votes the party receives, having more candidates on the ballot will increase the number of votes for the party in general, even though only about 6 of the candidates will likely sit in Parliament.

If that wasn’t exciting and educational enough, his wife, Jeanette, was only around for about half of the time that we stayed there because otherwise she was at Parliament, as the co-leader of the New Zealand Green Party (the Green Party requires a female leader and a male leader). Not only was she the first woman in Parliament when she was elected 12 years ago, her position in Parliament marked the first time that the Green Party was represented in the New Zealand Parliament. Today the Green Party holds 5% of the seats in Parliament, but the upcoming election in November is causing some concern, since a party cannot hold seats if it does not receive at least 5% of the vote and the percentage of votes for the Green Party in the last election came dangerously close to missing this mark. In addition to these credentials, Jeanette is cited as THE expert on climate change in New Zealand, so dinners with her also provoked some very interesting discussions.

The most impressive thing about staying on the farm was that Harry and Jeanette, despite her prestigious-ish place in the government, lived as simply as two people could possibly live. By using energy-efficient light bulbs and only using electricity when absolutely necessary, they were able to cut their energy usage to less than 10% of the average house of four. The farm is not registered “organic” because there is one strain of disease that can hit sheep and kill them within 3-4 days that can only be stopped by a chemical. However, while most farmers spray this chemical on all of their sheep every two weeks no matter what, Harry and Jeanette instead do weekly examinations of the sheep and only spray a sheep if it displays symptoms of the disease. At night we would have giant dinners of green beans with garlic and butter, red potatoes with rosemary, lettuce salad with olives, tomatoes, and other vegetables, and delicious fish with lemon…and the only item on the entire table that was not grown on the farm was the fish, which was purchased from a local farmer at the market.

All in all, when it comes to WWOOFing, I can’t imagine a more educational and inspiring set-up than we had in New Zealand.

-Luthien

Adventures Down Under (The Pacific Ocean)

Scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef was one of the most mind-blowing experiences of my life. No where else have I seen so much wildlife concentrated in one place – sea turtles, reef sharks, sting rays, giant clams, sea cucumbers, and fish and coral of seemingly infinite varieties. Even now, after several days on dry land, I can still recall the feeling of dropping underwater from the surface of the ocean, emptying my BCD and equalizing the pressure spaces in my ears as I slowly descend into an aquatic wonderland. Suddenly I can acutely hear my breathing, move my body nearly weightlessly in any direction, and stare up at the light refracting on the surface of the ocean as my air bubbles drift upwards from my regulator. It’s amazing what life develops in a world without the restraints of gravity. I did 11 dives over three days at sea on a live-aboard boat with ProDive Cairns. Perhaps most memorable was the dive in which a large bat fish followed my dive-buddy and I around, swimming circles around us for for well over half and hour, until it found a green sea turtle that looked more interesting and decided to swim after it instead. Some pictures from the dives (and of the bat fish) can be found here.

The Great Barrier Reef is enormous – 340,000 square kilometers to be exact. That’s half the size of Texas and the size of seven Great Britain’s. It’s the largest marine park in the world and the only living thing that is visible from the moon with the naked eye. Actually, the term Great Barrier Reef is a bit of a misnomer, as it actually is a conglomeration of 3,000 smaller reefs. The area is host to 1500 fish species, the highest diversity of fish found anywhere in the world. Like so many places today, the reef is at risk due to global warming. Coral is very sensitive and can only live in waters of a certain temperature, and if the ocean becomes too warm than the organisms living in the coral die, leaving just a bleached white skeleton behind. Of course, with the carbon footprint I’m leaving behind from my trip, I can’t really speak on this subject but from the perspective of a hypocrite. It is sadly ironic that all of the tourists flocking to see the reef are contributing to its demise.

In other news in Australia, yesterday the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has issued an official apology to the aboriginal people of Australia for past oppression and assimilation policies. It’s a pretty big step here, a country in which indigenous people didn’t have rights as citizens until the early 1970s. Indigenous tribes in Australia – of which there are hundreds – have the oldest continually maintained cultures in the world, having come to the continent over 40,000 years ago. An Australian I met highly recommended John Pilger’s book, A Secret Country, for reading on the history of what happened to the aboriginal peoples since British colonization. I don’t know a lot of the details yet myself, but I have learned enough to know that it is a sad and apalling tale of genocide that rivals that of the Native American communities in the United States.

And with that unhappy thought, it is time for me to go and pack my bag. Tomorrow Anne and I fly to Mumbai, India (we’ll meet up with Lou again when we reach Nepal next month). Our trip is about to take a big turn, as we leave Oceania after eight weeks of exploring Australia and New Zealand. Our time here has been wonderful – we’ve met so many kind and interesting people and seen so many breathtaking sites – that I only hope I can return again soon (perhaps on a biodiesel airplane?).

-Julie