It was not the original plan, but soon after arrival in Kochin, a few things became quickly apparent that made it the obvious best plan. 1) The Royal Enfield Bullet 350 is a beautiful machine and the streets of Kochin are packed with them. 2) There is an airport ~250 Km to the south in Thiruvananthapuram. 3) There is a hell of a lot of beautiful coastline, countless thatched fishing villages and very little else on that 250 Km stretch. And 4) both Kochin (point A) and Thiruvananthapuram (point B) are on the ocean so as long as the water is on the right, one ostensibly cannot get too lost. So the recipe for success was there. Two friends, a big fat 1940s-esque motorcycle, and the open road.
Task one was acquiring the choice motorcycle. Asking around town led us to Shafeek, a goofy round faced dude who I would pin in his early 20s. He had a really nice bike that he had clearly been taking good care of. The price was right, and he was keen to our plan. My passport and Nat’s backpack were collateral for the bike which we agreed to exchange for again at the Point B airport at the end of the week.
Let me pause here to say that I know that you all reading this are thinking “he is an idiot…motorcycle, no directions, leaving his passport” But I can tell you that this plan was actually quite thought out. The fact is that I had a chance to talk to Shafeek for a long time before the deal was set. The bottom line is that this motorcycle was clearly this guy’s life and he cared about it way way more than he could have cared about stealing my passport. Everyone's incentives were inline and both of us were clearly going to do everything we could to make sure we were at the meeting point, on time. All that is on top of the simple fact that we approached him unsolicited (rather than someone hawking moped rentals that you see in many tourist traps) so the chance of him being a bad guy were slim to begin with.
I spent almost an entire day with Shafeek getting all set. I made him buy a new rear tire, a backup fuel bottle, a oil change and a backrest/luggage tie (as much as I love Nat, we agreed that not having to hug for a week straight was a must).
So after some provisioning, repacking, and a long ride on my own to get used to the fact that Enfield’s have old fashioned English gear/clutch/gas/brake arrangements which are exactly opposite all other manual motorcycles on the planet, we were all set to depart.
10 mintes out of Kochin town and one thing was clear: this was going to be an insanely fun trip.
For the next 200 kilometers, with a few exceptions (outrageous exceptions), we were driving along in a completely peaceful, wonderful world. Little paved pathways only barely wide enough for compact car led from one village to the next. we drove really slowly because there was a lot to see. 9 out of 10 people we passed would shout "haaalo, how are you!!!" most kids ran along side smiling and waving.
We stopped often and I can tell you that there is a good story for each one of those stops. This is an area that, from what I can tell, sees very few whities. Its actually pretty surprising since certain areas of Kerala are famous tourist destinations (although mostly for Indians) and completely overwhelmed by tourist culture.
Four highlight stops:
1. The Government Guest House: Built during the colonial era for a British governor, it cost pennies to rent a room that was perhaps the quirky-coolest hotel room I have ever been in. In many ways, this old building is a perfect metaphor for so much of wacky, nonsensical
2. Recess: There were three distinct religious segments to our journey. At first, we were passing mosques almost every half kilometer. Then it was churches with equal frequency and then hindu temples. But never mixed -- people in this part of the world are religious by neighborhood. Anyway the point is that we stopped in the heart of the Christian part of the trip to admire an enormous church. As we pulled up, class got out for recess at the local school. I was really hungry (finding food was pretty hard at several points along this trip) and was focused on finding a place to get something. Once we were off the bike, I turned around to Nat and saw behind him a wave of plaid uniforms! A huge stampede of children was about to engulf us. This scene was so hilarious. The entire school gathered in a big mob around us. Clearly in this kind of situation there is only one thing to do: get these kids extremely riled up (good luck to those teachers after recess). We took a bunch of pictures (which unfortunately are lost forever along with Nat's camera...boohoo) and ran around in circles -- herding the stampede. My honest, non-exaggerated guess is that there were 250 children surrounding us. After 15 minutes of sheer mayhem, the bells rang and all the kids went running back into classes shouting goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, GOOOOOODDDDbye!!
3. Being, Well, Kinda Lost and Cold in the Rain with some Fishermen: On the second day of the trip it rained. A lot. Apparently Kerala gets two rainy seasons and late October is one of them. We had nothing resembling warm or weatherproof clothing and this made driving not that great, so we didn't drive much on day 2. We ended up spending about five hours in this one village where fisherman were bringing in the morning catch. It was pretty chilly (and my attempts to use some plastic and a palm tree to make a shelter were not too successful) so after about a half hour of sitting under this huge canoe, I just gave up on staying even a little bit dry and just left my shirt and shoes under the canoe and went down the beach where about 20 fishermen were working.
A bunch of guys, doing their work, soaking wet and no one cared. There was something deeply peaceful about this scene. All the fishermen help each other do everything. No one man can bring his own boat in up the beach alone, no one man can take the fish from the nets and keep the nets folded alone, and all the village survives on fishing or spinoff economy to survive. So everyone is involved. Every once in a while people would run down the beach to the boats from the village and shout to someone to get some approval or negotiate some deal. Then they would grab a bunch of fish (these are little fish, like big sardines) and run back up the beach to their homes or shops or whatever to get out of the rain.
After chilling (ya, pun.) with the fishermen for a while, I joined back with Nat and we decided to try to seek proper shelter. We walked up to one of the cement houses and just stood under the overhang of the roof. Slowly but surely, people started coming up and looking at us. Eventually we got invited inside and had some incredibly rejuvenating hot chai. Not too much for us to talk about at first so Nat and I sat in the front room of this two room house with an old man. About 15 women sat in the back room of the house and one by one would come up to the doorway, look and us, and then upon making eye contact, would retreat back into the ladies's room and everyone would have a good giggle.
This went on for about an hour while Nat and I chatted and sipped chai. Eventually Nat got the idea to try to 1) figure out where we were, and 2) get information about how to mail these good folks some of the pictures he had taken of them (which of course, are lost with the rest of his pics! damn it!). Anyway, this got wound up into a big commotion and several different local players came from far and wide to get involved. Pen and paper were sent for, a young man who spoke some English was brought in. Eventually we had an address (actually several) and a list of the towns to ask for in order to find our way to the town we were hoping to use as checkpoints in order to get to the town where we wanted to sleep that night. Eventually the rain subsided and we headed out. But that village will remain a great memory.
4. Sardines in the Street and a Sideways Ferry: At one point on our second to last day, we needed to be making time. All the stopping and chatting had put us behind schedule and we knew we needed to get further south before nightfall. Cruising along, after vowing not to stop for at least an hour, we quickly came out of the palm forest and were driving up onto a small headland. A large group of people were sitting and laying around on either side of the road and the road itself was completely covered by millions of sardines drying in the sun. This was a problem. We thought that the only way for us to go on was to continue on this road and there was certainly no way to pass without squishing a large portion of these fishies. The funny thing is that not one of these folks sitting around, ostensibly guarding the sardines, even said a word or acted concerned when we drove up. Very confusing. Attempts to communicate were met only with nods and muttering in Malayalam. Very confusing. Maybe they were drunk? Who knows.
So we stopped the bike and I proceeded on foot. About a hundred yards beyond the field of fish, I had a good view down the road and saw another very confusing sight. The road, which that very morning had been described to us as a great route to the next big town, appeared to go directly into a major river... Shit. I walked back up to Nat who was continuing to have no luck talking to the sardine clan:
Good news: we don't need to get the bike past the sardines. Bad news: the road we have been on for the last many kilometers appears to be quite a dead end.
About a half kilometer back up the road, we got directions some information from some construction workers (doing g-d knows what with a backhoe... typical scene: 20 people were watching and shouting as one man drove the backhoe and basically tore the roadway up and made a huge racket in the process. All for no apparent reason.) Long story short: we had to head inland for a few kilometers to get to the ferry dock which would take us to the other side of the river and the continuation of our beach road. Oh and by the way: the bridge that was supposed to be there crossing the river may or may not have been wiped out by a tsunami...or the tsunami... unclear.
After asking directions 10 more times and driving for a while we got to the ferry dock. The ferry was a canoe. There were 25 women in saris in the canoe. The canoe seats 10. Motorcycles don't fit in canoes to begin with.
After asking directions to the big ferry and driving for a long while, we got to the big ferry dock. We had become accustomed to all sorts or ferry docks over the course of our trip. The first day we took two rides on a big ferry similar the ones you take in the States in Cape Cod or
Anyway, back to the story: we arrived at the big ferry dock and were in the middle of what I thought was the line for the ferry. It appeared that the ferry had just docked and we were waiting to get on. Nat got off the bike and I waited to board. Then I heard Nat behind me: “Whoa,” and turned around to discover that the dock actually was the ferry! I hopped off the bike and by the time I got to the edge, we were out in the middle of the river. This ferry was ingeniously built by attaching planks over six giant canoes. At the end of this barge type contraption, is a bigger motor-boat (which I thought was the ferry). It is also attached to the barge and drives the whole barge across the river in a sideways motoion. I know this is confusing to imagine, but it was also confusing even once I figured out what the hell was going on and was standing on this thing in the middle of a river. Not sure I can explain it any better.
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