Sunday, June 6, 2010

Sunday, June 6, 2010

This time tomorrow night I hope to be able to print my boarding pass. Won't that be great? I've enjoyed myself. However, I am ready.

At 4:15 PM today, we went to the elephant preserve, the Arabian Sea, St. Thomas the Apostle museum, and, last but not least, the huge Hindu temple which I am not allowed to enter. I swear to you that the police don't show up until it looks like I am going to try to get in the temple, and then they show up in droves. In what little I could see from the outside, one whole wall and maybe more look to be prayer candles. Really pretty.
Krishna is not one to take a lazy stroll through the elephant preserve or probably anything else, but we did see all the elephants. People can donate elephants and provide for their care by setting up an annuity. There is a waiting list of people wanting to sponsor elephants. This is probably because elephants are very important here. No longer for work in Kerala, but for a lot of festivals.

Kerala has a 1:6 person to vehicle ratio while the rest of India has a 1:25 ratio. Food prices have gone up 16.5% since the first of the year countrywide, not just in Kerala.

Geckos can certainly make a lot of noise for as small as they are. I have a pet one in my room. He doesn't bother me, and I don't bother him.

When it rains here, it seldom rains for long, but it can be of the heavy downpour sort. I have yet to see a puddle anywhere but on the roads. The rice fields are damp, but there is no standing water. It just soaks right in. When I got here, I thought things looked kind of dry. There was a drought over a large part of the country last year so they are hoping and praying for a good monsoon season. I've come to decide that monsoon season is merely a rainy season. There don't seem to be any storms like hurricanes or typhoons or cyclones. That's good because the coconut trees have a very small root system so they blow over easily.

The other day I saw an earthmover--the small variety. He was as wide as the lane he was trying to go down with a concrete wall on one side and a 5 foot dropoff on the other. He couldn't get around the corner so he put his stabilizers down and moved the back end around that way.
I know. Sometimes it takes very little to entertain me.

The other night Baji asked Krishna why he chose Zamorin's after seeing so many others on websites. He told of one in Thissur that offered Ayurveda complete with activities when you aren't in treatment. Baji said that Zamorin's was here for cures not for touristing. Treatment and tourism do not go together. Krishna's reason for coming here was in communicating with Babu, he felt the warmth and welcome that we have experienced in working with Babu.

I think I partied too much this afternoon so I am going to bed.

Take care.

Love,
Mom/Peggy/Granny, NiNi

I have a string of wonderfully smelling jamine in my hair courtesy of Krishna.