Not Cycle Touring in India: Part One 

Health warning: This blog does not contain pictures. You will have to use the magic of imagination until we stumble upon Asia's only non-shit internet connection...

With a growing sense of dread, we looked at the blank plaque where a business should have been on the ground floor of the tumbledown apartment block in Cochin. Just a few hours in, it was already clear that doing business in India was going to be a more difficult prospect than in the clockwork predictability of Europe.

"No self-storage here, sir," a short, moustachioed Dravidian of about fifty told me, a large crowd of locals forming behind him. "This is a Hindu building. Your 'Thomas Abraham' is a Christian. We do not know him." I looked round despairingly at our taxi driver for some guidance on the situation, who returned my gaze impassively, adjusting his longyi with the air of a man expecting additional profit in the coming minutes.

We had been in Kerala for a matter of hours, and already we were getting our first taste of the frustrating, exhilarating, and strangely harmonious disorder that characterises life on the subcontinent. We had decided to fly the bikes over with us and put them in storage for a month, reasoning that trying to cycle any great distance through India's stifling heat and crush of humanity on a 30-day visa would put us on a hiding to nothing. Or, to put it another way, I had no interest in being flattened by an amphetamine-fuelled Tata lorry driver on a madcap venture that the majority of cycle tourists do not recommend.

It proved, eventually, to be an astute choice. But that wasn't the opinion as we stood in that obscure side street in Ernakulam, having followed very clear and explicit directions to a meticulously researched self-storage company that simply didn't exist. "How much would they charge you for the bicycles, sir?" our moustachioed ringleader said, gesturing to the enormous plastic-wrapped green mummies that we had stuffed into the taxi with great difficulty.

"1500 rupees for the month," I replied. Some quickfire Malayalam dialogue between the taxi driver, ringleader, and crowd of locals followed.

"Then that is OK sir. I will store them, in my shop, for 30 days," he said, "for 6000 rupees".

Even as a newcomer to India, my mouth fell open at such shameless profiteering. "No!" I blurted out. "Too expensive. We will find somewhere else."

Some exhausted haggling and more machine-gun Malayali later, the price had dropped to 3000 rupees. "Show me where you will store them," I said. This isn't what we need after a 12 hour flight, I thought. Who is this guy? Why didn't the storage place exist? Why is the taxi driver agreeing with everyone? What on earth is going on?

The suspicion must have showed on my face, for one of the locals laid a reassuring hand on my arm and told me that if I were to store my bicycles with this local personality, I would have a "full guarantee". "Full guarantee, sir," he repeated, with what I'm sure he imagined he was an encouraging smile. This did little to assuage my fears, however, instead prompting an unsettling flurry of thoughts on the current - and no doubt parlous - state of Indian consumer-protection law.

The "shop" turned out to be a local house in which two smiling saree-clad ladies assured me they would safely store my bikes just as soon as they had finished their cleaning, and eventually with Sarah's cautious assent we pulled away from the street, having potentially just paid a 2000-rupee advance for the privilege of having our expensive touring bikes and camping gear disappear without trace.

Our driver pulled away into the dripping metropolis of Ernakulam, dodging and weaving within the biblical tidal wave of traffic, and as I settled back into my seat, one thought kept returning to my mind:

Oh God, what have we just done?

KERALA

A prosperous, hot, irrepressably lush state in the south of India, Kerala is often sold as "India-lite"; that is, this is the state to visit if you want a  taste of the flavours and smells of the southern subcontinent but less of the grasping hands, plastic bottles, and rivers of foul-smelling ooze so prevalent elsewhere. This is still India, of course, so it's not as if these bits aren't still there - there's just somewhat less of it. Like Pondicherry, this slightly less scary reputation sees respectable golden oldies flock there in droves, as you can apparently have an entirely "normal" holiday here (that is, one where you never have to go through a hellish "sleeper train squat toilet" experience).

The first thing you notice in Kerala is the humidity, which is palpable; by which I mean that there is so much atmospheric wetness that it has ceased to be a meteorological concept and has become a real, physical thing, tasted on the tongue and observed with the naked eye. The sun shines dimly, obscured by a heavy white haze that never lifts. Your clothing sticks to your skin and walking around gives you a distinct impression of wading. No wonder the colonials spent all their time being fanned by natives and drinking gin and tonic.

Speaking of which, it turns out that Kerala is, sadly, a mostly dry state. Beer and wine can only be purchased from special government shops or five-star hotels, meaning you have a choice of drinking your (extremely pricey) booze in a squalid booth populated by hardcore alcoholics or as the only customer in a surgically lit dining room surrounded by bellboys at a loose end. It's a long way from the Italian dream of a litre of very drinkable red for a euro (more on that in another update).

We started our stay in Fort Cochin, on the Malabar coast. This is an old Dutch colonial settlement of boxy, crumbling 14th century houses being steadily reclaimed by luminous creeping vines, grasses and coconut palms. Goats wander the streets, unherded, serenely nibbling on bits of old poster tacked to walls rife with damp mould as crows flutter overhead. Its rubbish-strewn harbour is a particular draw, presenting a classic Indian juxtaposition; rickety wooden 14th century Chinese fishing nets stand still operational, in contrast to huge modern tankers advancing heavy and stately across the other side of the bay.

A few days' R&R followed, in which we did our best to not mention where our bikes might be, sampled the local posh tourist fare and took in our first taste of India. We witnessed a wrestling match between singlet-clad local children, gravely officiated by a referee and watched over by half the town, and learnt the art of rebuffing the slimy autorickshaw drivers, who will tell you that everything you were planning to do is wrong and only they, the selfless tuk-tuk man, can rescue your shattered itinerary through a very reasonably priced journey that definitely won't dump you outside a tourist shop.

On our second day we took a guided tour of the "backwaters", which ended up being a soporific six hours gliding around empty waterways east of Cochin. My chief memory of this excursion was the overwhelming feeling of being just another overfed Western chump, standing with the other Westerners on the trip and gawping at locals making rope. Recommended if you like feeling the full weight of your developed world privilege and falling asleep in a boat.

We also visited the hyper-modern LuLu Mall, a point of pride for Cochin residents. The mall is basically an air-conditioned Stratford Westfield so I don't have much to say about it apart from generic praise for its cleanliness and selection of fast food. However, the local bus journey we took to get there is definitely worth mentioning. For a mere 36 rupees, we had an hour-long glimpse into the harmonious chaos that is Indian local public transport, and it was definitely one of the most entertaining hours we spent on the trip.

Indian traffic rules appear completely disordered, but you soon work out that there is definitely a system in play; it's basically a Darwinian mini-society where the biggest, baddest vehicle has right of way and the tiddlers get out of the way or get crushed. Even the cacophony of car horns has a definite purpose to it - it's not just one collective howl of rage (as it first appears) but is in fact a complex system of signalling to other drivers the exact nature of the death-defying maneuver you are about to make. Our bus, being basically the largest vehicle on the road, sent autorickshaws and scooters swerving in all directions as it ploughed a glorious path between two lanes, letting out a near-constant stream of honks which defied interpretation but seemed to boil down to "OUT OF THE WAY, MOTHERFUCKERS!" The only vehicles we would alter our course for were lorries and other buses, which the driver would attempt to overtake apparently as a point of principle, even if it meant holding up a huge stream of traffic or becoming stuck behind another large vehicle.

A few nights later, Sarah's mum Julie flew out to spend a week's holiday with us. It was Julie's first time in India, too, and she brought with her an irrepressible optimism about every facet of the country. "I'm really glad we got to spend some time in a typical Indian supermarket," was a particularly memorable spirit-cheering comment, as we navigated through pokey aisles and tried to trace an unaccountable smell of burning plastic.

We headed straight from Cochin Airport to Alleppey, two hours' drive south, to spend a couple of nights in a homestay in Kerala's backwaters. The backwaters around Alleppey are far better than those around Cochin; around here, they are a scarcely believable network of glassy liquid highways where wooden canoes and houseboats ply quietly past islands of palms and rice fields, whilst locals wash, drink, play and swim in the waters. Aside from the combine harvesters, it really is like stepping two millenia back in time.

We were staying with the Thevercad family, Syrian Christian rice farmers who lived in a large river-front house with heavy varnished wood panelling and grounds surrounded by washy coconut palms and banana trees. I find it more difficult to write convincingly when I only have good things to say, so rather than descending into Lonely Planet-style cliche ("a feast for the senses" "serene riverfront tranquillity", "an authentic back-to-basics experience", etc), I'll just put down the bare facts.

- Food good
- Fishing at dusk good
- Backwater cruise good
- Beers on porch watching life go by good
- Rambling chats with the charming Thevercad children good

In summary, it was very good.

Next we headed back to Fort Cochin, this time staying with a Mr Walton in his restored Dutch colonial house in the centre of town. Fastidious and immaculately bearded, Mr Walton received us in his office surrounded by well-organised shelves of second-hand paperbacks donated by previous guests. (As an aside, you can really tell the type of guests a place has by the books they leave behind. Being a more up-market homestay, I counted at least four books on coping with divorce on one shelf alone, suggesting to me that this is a popular place for well-to-do recently single middle aged ladies seeking an Eat, Pray, Love experience). After commanding us to sit down, Mr Walton flipped through his tidy log book and took down an extremely thorough record of our personal details whilst I tried to shake off the distinct impression that we were naughty children called in front of the headmaster. "You are very organised, Mr Walton," said Julie. "Madam, I was a lawyer," came the immediate reply, delivered with a stern look over his reading glasses. "Organisation is the most important thing."

You might be reading this and thinking that Mr Walton was an unfriendly host, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Unlike many hosts in India, who have perfected the art of appearing like a cringing sycophant whilst ripping you off shamelessly, Mr Walton is a genuine bloke who tells it like it is. Whilst at one point he shooed Sarah out of his office for disturbing his work, at the end of our stay he presented us with a huge pile of incense and other gifts and gave us some quality advice on the rest of our trip. Basically, if you're acting like a tit, he won't be shy about telling you, but he will go to great lengths to ensure that you enjoy your stay with him and avoid getting ripped off by touts. Extremely refreshing.

After our second stint in Fort Cochin, during which we visited the surprisingly decent Dutch palace museum and shopped for Malabar spices in the down-at-heel district of Mattancherry, we headed east up into the Western Ghats. Up here, it is cooler, and huge tides of mist roll over steep hills covered in ragged spice farms and terraced tea plantations. The ubiquitous crows, goats and street dogs of the coast are gone, replaced by green parrots and families of grey macaques, who sit and watch you with wrinkled, solemn faces.

The colonials used to come up here for a break from the stifling heat of the coast, and whilst the promise of a mosquito-free environment turned out to be erroneous, it is gloriously cool. Living in Britain, you don't really appreciate the true value of mild weather; yes, it may rain and look miserable, but you never sweat through a shirt seconds after putting it on. It's easy to remedy cold weather with a roaring fire and a warming pint of ale, but you're stuffed if it's too hot, aren't you? You've just got to sit there and take it. Orwell wrote extensively about the phenomenon of the hard-drinking, insufferably boring and depressed colonial Anglo-Indian, and after a few days in the sticky heat you begin to appreciate how maddeningly uncomfortable it must have been here before the advent of fans and AC. It's still a good 20 degrees up in Munnar, but the air tastes like tea and mist, rather than petrol and cow dung. Delightful.

We did all the things you are supposed to do in Munnar. We visited a tea factory  on a tour presented by a well-spoken young gent in a blazer that was a few sizes too small; went on a ramble around a plantation and smelt the pervasive fresh smell of tea; and went to watch a traditional Kathikali dance, which was bizarre. Apparently it takes the performers something like 15 years' worth of training before they can properly play the characters - I presume that most of this is taken up learning how to waggle your eyebrows suggestively.

We had hired a driver for the day, and had agreed with his suggestion of a visit to a local village to see some traditional handicrafts (at least, that's what we thought he was suggesting). Sarah and her mum both inexplicably enjoy shopping, as a discrete activity in itself, rather than a chore to grit your teeth and endure. It's particularly bad in India, where a shop assistant constantly hovers around you, picking up items you're perfectly capable of examining yourself and asserting how well this badly stitched curtain or sandalwood elephant would go with your home in the UK. So a visit to a handicrafts village sounded like the perfect opportunity for that, whilst I could sneak off and play a bit of Pokemon.

However, as we turned into the village, we realised with mounting horror that this was no ordinary town; as the signs made clear, it was in fact some kind of boarding school for disabled orphans. Not that there is anything wrong with that, of course, in fact it's laudable that such places exist, but we all thought we were about to be roped into the worst kind of car-crash tourism. There's a scene in the Netflix film Beasts of No Nation which sums it up perfectly; the African child soldiers are in the middle of a gruelling training exercise when a 4X4 speeds past filled with Western journalists who gawp and take pictures, leaving the kids to their fate. We thought we would have to tour the facility like the overpaid, overfed, privileged chumps that we were, taking pictures of disabled kids in grinding poverty for a few Facebook likes, then get guilt-tripped for a huge donation by the orphanage pimps at the end. Even Julie expressed discomfort at the prospect.

Luckily, it wasn't quite like that. The kids and young adults were working in handicrafts factories making tie-dyed shirts and recycled paper goods, as part of an initiative sponsored by the Indian manufacturing giant Tata. The workers were cheerily bantering with each other as we walked in and were happy to show off their work. Sarah and Julie bought a bunch of stuff, predictably, but it was a hassle- and guilt-free experience. And I got to play some Pokemon. Result.

Next time, tune in for India part 2 - I'll also disrupt the chronology of this blog by recounting our tutto bene time in Italy at some point.