Kochi, India
I'm finally in India. Getting a visa required four trips to the consulate in Dubai. It was complicated because *technically* you're not supposed to be issued a visa outside of your country of residence. They were surprisingly nice about it though. If I had been a legal resident in the UAE, it would have taken a few hours. Instead, it took six days, because they had to get clearance from the consulate in San Francisco, where I was supposed to have applied for the visa. I convinced them to let me keep my passport while they were waiting for clearance, which was why I was able to go to Oman for the weekend. The one day that they did have to keep my passport, however, I had big problems trying to check into a hotel in Dubai with no passport. But it's all over. I changed money at the Sharjah airport and wow, Indian rupees are big. They're probably the largest banknotes I've ever carried in my wallet. I've become used to carrying around currency with pictures of mean looking dictators, so it's refreshing to now have in my pocket the lame, goofy looking Gandhi. I had heard all the horror stories about the incredibly poverty, unbelieveable hassle and scams and total squalor of India, so I came prepared for the worst. But since I stepped off the plane, I've been pleasantly surprised. Granted this is Kerala, one of India's wealthiest states. The airport was very nice and modern, and the bathrooms some of the cleanest I've been in on the entire trip. The immigration counters all had flip signs on them indicating, in English, whether they were "OPEN" or "CLOSED." Except upon closer examination you could tell that the "OPEN" side had originally read "OPENED" with the "ED" rubbed off or on some of them covered with tape, I guess when somebody pointed out to them that this was improper English. The consulate in Dubai had spelt my name wrong on my visa, so I was a little worried this might be a problem. Turns out, though, they had bigger concerns about me. The official flipped through my passport examining all of the strange visas and realized that I had been out of my country for a long time. Finally it had been called into question just what the hell I was doing wandering alone around the world with one tiny carry-on suitcase and a ton of Arabic in my passport. "You came from Dubai?" "Yes." "Do you work in Dubai?" "No, I'm just a tourist." "May I see your ticket?" I showed him the printout of my e-ticket confirmation email from Air Arabia, which of course was one-way. I was terrified that he was going to ask to see a return ticket. He then got up and took my passport over to a superior where they conferred on whether or not to let me in. When he returned he sat down and asked me very bluntly "what is the purpose of your visit to India?" "Tourism." "That's all?" "Yes." He stamped my passport then very uneasily handed it back to me, with the look on his face clearly showing that he wasn't sure what he had just done was a good idea. I expected to find the kind of hassle that I encountered in Cairo when leaving the terminal, but it just wasn't there. No problem getting a taxi with an honest fare, but when I got in the back seat I was surprised to see the steering wheel on the right side of the vehicle. Of course! In this former British colony, the driving is on the left. I knew that, I just hadn't thought about it recently. On the way into town I saw a business whose sign read "PMS Agencies." Last night for dinner I had cashew nut curry. It was one of the most delicious meals of my life. So my first impressions of India were very good. Today I've explored much more of the city of Kochi. The British called it Cochin, but recently they changed the name to Kochi to better reflect local heritage, just like Bombay became Mumbai and Calcutta became Kolkata. However, even though the name change occured at least ten years ago I think, things don't change fast in India. The stamp in my passport says "Cochin." I had always wanted to visit the state of Kerala because it sounded beautiful, but the main reason that this is my entry point into India is because it's cheap to fly here from the Gulf. Most of the Indian workers in the Gulf come from here. They also have (or at least had for many years) a communist government. I've seen several red flags that have a slightly different variation of the hammer and sickle. Funny though, because on the other hand all of the tourist signs have a logo that boasts "Kerala: God's Own Country." It's true, the poverty really does surround you here. Strangely, I feel completely at ease. Had I arrived here as the first stop on my trip, this post would probably be filled with descriptions of the horrible poverty, but I'm kind of unaffected by it at the moment. One weird thing, though, is that there are Jews here. There once was a large Jewish community, but now most have left for Israel, but a few remain. There is "Jew Street" and a part of town called "Jew Town," which cracks me up because the Borat rendition of the Kazakh antional anthem describes a "very nice place, from the Plains of Talashyk to northern fence of Jew Town."