I stayed up ALL NIGHT finishing the festival's documentary
And then a few minutes later... I hopped a train South...

I bought a ticket from Goa to the tip of India... and as i was travelling down
(in my half-cracked consciousness) I read about a cute little town called Fort Cochin
in Northern Kerala... with an Art Cafe, Good Internet, a Dutch Cemetary, something called
the Santa Cruz Basilica (a Portuguese Church from 1902), and a "Jewtown" with Spices
So I decided to jump off the train a few hours early... and do some exploring...

This is a Ella... a cool girl from Sweeden... I met her at the Art Cafe a few doors down from my hotel
She showed me around town and she gave me some great solo-girl traveling advice for Sri Lanka :-)

Click the rollover on this one... these dale carnegie religious signs are awesome....
and they are EVERYWHERE...whole streets are lined with them :-)
(Funny) Tom Waits' song "Chocolate Jesus" just came on as I am posting this :-)

These pictures dont really capture the essence...
but these hollow beach tipi looking things by the water
are really ridiculous huge man powered triangle fishing nets....

These boys are my new friendly Brittish Stalkers :-)
We keep crossing paths... I sat in front of them before i got on the train south...
then we all got off at the same stop... then we both were denied from the YMCA
and then i saw them at the beach...so we decided to properly introduce ourselves...
Nice guys out on an extended adventure... I may see them again in Thailand too :-)
(the one on the right looks SO MUCH like my swing dancer friend Brian from SC)

This is the Santa Cruz Basilica- Old Portuguese Church from 1902

This is my messy room at Adam's Old Inn... nice high ceelings... window...
private bathroom... and it is right in the center of town... only $3 a night :-)


These look like little geckos...
but they say something similar to Monty Python's Shrubbery Men
IkiIkiPetangZoot

BACKWATER TOUR
Random fact of the day: do you know the difference between black and white pepper?
The man sitting next to me was my tour guide... and we saw all different kinds of plants:
tapioca, NUTMEG, pepper, cotton pods, coffee, cloves, pineapple, a fruit that KIND OF looks
like pineapple... but the locals call it the suicide fruit... cause "one is enough to kill a man"
anyways... quite an informative day... so the difference between pepper is just that to make
white pepper you take the seed and put it in hot water until the skin seperates... and then you
dry the skin... black pepper is much easier... you just dry the whole thing and grind it up

Here i am eating a coconut... the man standing next to me cut it down for me...
its funny... he was always smiling... and smiled AFTER the photo was taken...
but he was trying to look manly for the camera or something
I was quite proud of myself... i drank all of the coconut milk (there was A LOT)
it became this royal double dog dare that i had to finish...

This is an ADORABLE little girl and her goat :-)


Here you can see the woman making ROPE... they take the stuffing bark
from a coconut and then wind it with itself... and this baby was just TOO CUTE

Do you see the water buffalo? I looked over and had to do a double take...
big cow things in the water... im not in California anymore :-)

Ella and I outside Kashi's Art Cafe as she was leaving town....
i have a feeling that i will run into her again... if not in Dehli... then maybe Sweeden or SF


NEXT STOP: SRI LANKA :-)

Trip 2004 / India