Magic Man Come to Your Room Tonight

The crawl up the Indian coastline has been quick and tiresome. Just how I like it. I'm even more convinced now that Jen and Megan our my travel soulmates as they are some of the only people who prefer to maintain the same fast and exhaustive pace that I do. It happens every time I travel, there's so much to see and do I can't sit still, and would go crazy lounging on a beach for a month straight (like the lazy Australian we met in Varkala beach). So we've been doing a steady two days, one night in most locations up the coast of India. We flew into south Kerala and stopped at the beautiful cliff beach of Varkala and left the next day for Alappuzha, which Megan dubbed Alappalouza, since that's so much more fun to say. We planned on sailing through the backwaters of Kerala there, however, after an exhaustive two hours of haggling and touring a million houseboats, we could not find one that was affordable. So we took some pictures, cut our losses and went back to drink ice cream coffee and Kream Korner restaurant.

Needless to say, eating has become a big part of this trip, as with our everyday life in general. Some people come to India to do drug tours, or try various forms of religion, but we find food much more satisfying. And with less side effects. "The Delhi Belly" is the nickname the backpackers have for the nasty traveler diarrhea that seems inevitable in India. But with paneer tikka masala, naan bread, chaphati, alu gobi, and all the chi tea you can drink, we've given the Delhi Belly a new definition.



After several vists to Kream Korner. we left Alappalouza and went to Cochi, a quaint dutch colony that host the only chinese fishing nets in India, some of which are over 800 years old. We spent some time soaking up some local culture (and cuisine, of course) by testing local restaurants and attending a traditional Kathakali play (an Indian kind of opera, but with more makeup) We also made some fun new friends and got our fill of the beautiful backwaters of Kerala through a cheaper boat tour that included canoeing through the lush, jungle type vegetation of the area. As well as a random stop to see a cement factory and eat lunch off a banana leaf.
After Cochi, we began the long stretch up to Goa, with a stop at Kannur beach to break up the journey. After a hellish 6 hour train ride beginning at 6:30 am, we piled into the back of a tuk-tuk as he drove around lost for 45 minutes trying to find our hotel, as we almost past out from hunger and heat exhaustion in the back seat.




Kannur redeemed itself later that night by having a fabulous restaurant with a waiter who spoke English. He pointed us in the direction of a local theater that showed Bollywood films. None of the movies were in English or had subtitles, but we decided to check it out anyway (we were planning on being Bollywood stars later in the trip anyway) A nice young man showed us where to by the tickets, and also, to our surprise, bought one himself and decided to join us.
If Indian theater etiquette was every practiced in the states, there would be a riot with a severe beating. Indians chatting on their cell phones, loudly too, in order to be heard over the sound of the music. Some people puffed away on cigarettes, and the entire theater hooted and hollered at any part that they found funny or during the fight scenes. We were able to get the gist of the movie, thanks to the random English lines that were mixed in with the Hindi.
"The mission is off!" and "the mission is not off!" and "30 times more dangerous!"
According to our new movie theater pal, the movie was not a good one. "No singing, no dancing, very bad. Very bad movie."
After the movie he offered to give us a lift home in his car. We piled in, only to have him pull over after a few minutes and turn on the light. "I magic man." He said. "Magic man come to your room tonight."
"Oh, that's ok, we're good." Not sure how the Magic man was planning to get to our room.
"No, magic, look." He pulled out a coin and attempted to make it disappear several times by rubbing it on his forearm, only to have it fall out onto the seat.
"Yea, it's ok, we'll just go home."
He dropped us off at the hotel and followed us in. We let him use the bathroom before trying to tell him we were going to bed.
"No, I stay, magic!"
"No, you can't stay, we're married!" Jen announced, and we all flashed our pseudo wedding bans we had donned for India to keep the men away.
"No! No! for Magic!!" We finally realized that our magic man wanted to perform a magic show in our room, that was the reason for following us in. We still had to decline, however, as the little magic show preview had not been too impressive.

I ran into the Magic Man while out for a walk the next day and at the beach that night, and both times he attempted to show us his magic one more time. Our response was also to disappear. Magically. Maybe he did have some talent after all.