It rained all night and it was raining so hard that I woke up several times during the night and early this morning. A little before nine it was still raining heavily but Tara and I wanted to get to Krishna’s Vegetarian Restaurant for a South Indian breakfast of idli, upma and dosas. At the intersection we tried to get an auto-rickshaw but the driver said he couldn’t take us there due to the amount of water in the road, across the intersection we could see another street completely covered in water. We decided to go to Kashi’s where they serve delicious breakfast but found ourselves trapped in a puzzle as each time we turned a corner the street rushed a river of water or was blocked by a massive puddle that became a lake and prevented us from progressing towards Kashi’s. After a lot of back-tracking we arrived in front of a hotel and decided to have breakfast there since we were unable to make it anywhere else. From the rooftop restaurant we could see all of Fort Cochin and to our delight the menu listed a few Indian breakfast items. From breakfast we went to the Ayurvedic Clinic to have our doshas diagnosed. I was surprised to learn that my constitution is Vata, air and the doctor gave me a few dietary principles to follow. By the time we were finished at the clinic, it had stopped raining and the sun shone bright and hard above us. It looked like it was going to be a beautiful day so we decided to take the ferry to Vypeen Island and see if we could make it to the beach there. On our way out of the Home Stay we were intercepted by a rickshaw driver and agreed on a price for him to transport us to the jetty. He tried to sell us tours of Jew Town and the Bazaar but we said we would be doing that tomorrow. “Tomorrow Bazaar closed. Holiday,” he informed us.
“Which holiday?” I inquired.
“Friday holiday,” he replied then added matter-of-factly,” many Muslim people have shop in Bazaar.”
Tara and I consulted with each other and decided to forego the beach as we both had a few items we wanted to pick up at the Bazaar. We set a new rate with our driver Chaky (pronounced: Shakey) and he took us to all the places we requested and some that he suggested – a perfume shop for essential oils, a restaurant to pick up some local, organic coffee beans, a supermarket for all sorts of spices and Indian treats, and a couple of shops where he gets a commission or fuel vouchers.
No comments:
Post a Comment