At each Indian Coffeehouse it is the same. We marvel at how the food continues to taste good even when served on stained plates by waiters wearing dirty uniforms.
Our three-wheeler gets us to the main boat jetty just minutes before the 11:05 ferry to Mantancherry. The clouds hold their rain until after we walk all the way down Bazaar Road, which is lined with side-by-side dilapidated tea, rice, and spice wholesalers. The road is clogged with goats, bicycles, trucks, cars, taxis, three-wheelers, and pedestrians. We pass several small Catholic churches, including Mary of the Small Flower.
We hear the rain pelting down from inside the dimly lit museum at the Dutch Palace. A self-appointed guide attaches himself to us for half of the rooms, his half-intelligible English a source of mild amusement for me. The famed murals are in need of restoration and are barely discernable in the glare of the poorly placed fluorescent lights. Gods emerge from lotus flowers growing out of bellybuttons, gods sit on peacocks and coiled cobras, bare-breasted maidens hold oil lamps. Elephant-fish, man-fish, and stingrays swim in a transparent sea. Gods with eight arms, three heads, and one-thousand-and-one eyes grace the former king and queen’s room. The detail is beautiful and intricate, too much to fully appreciate in a short visit. I keep imagining myself drawing a small section, but the lighting is never right, or there is nowhere to sit, or I don’t have my paper and pencils. Mostly it stays just a daydream because I don’t’ have the will to give it the time and energy it would require to create a worthy likeness.
Our “guide” is not happy with our contribution, quipping back immediately, “Very small.” He stands beside us in silence. I don’t give anymore. I am tired of friendliness giving way to indebtedness.
We eat a Thali lunch at a vegetarian restaurant and take a three-wheeler to St. Francis Church. It has only three simple tri-colored stained glass windows, and is disappointing in that sense, but how many churches can boast the original resting place of Vasco De Gama? If I ever knew that he had died in India, I had forgotten it long ago. He landed in Kochin in 1502 after a five year journey from Portugal, and died in Kochin on Christmas Eve in 1523. After fourteen years at St. Francis, his remains were removed to his homeland.
We walk to the bay and marvel at the huge blue Chinese fishing nets lining both shores. It takes six men to pull the ropes holding the two dozen boulder anchor weights past the balance point which keeps the nets submerged. Slowly, slowly the boulders are lowered and the wooden poles emerge, followed by the nets. It is a quiet, delicate balancing act.
We catch the 3:15 return ferry at 3:45. A visit to the Tourist Information Office is futile. Long lines prevent us from securing a reservation on an air conditioned train car for the journey to Calicut tomorrow.
Back at the hotel we call my mother in Ohio to tell her we are in India. “Oh my God!” comes her startled reply. No matter where I call from, the response is the same: “Insert name of country here, Oh my God!” Her news is that she has fallen at a fast food restaurant and broken her nose, and that she has lost her job.
