Not too much to report today, as most of it was spent on the train from Cochin to Trivandrum:
After hanging out by the pool for awhile this morning at the hotel in Cochin, we left for the train station about an hour and a half before our train was to depart, only to find out that the train was about 30 minutes delayed. We didn't find this out, of course, for quite some time, as the indicators for such things are not readily apparent. Despite the fact that there were several television monitors displaying train schedules for upcoming trains (none of which showed our train), delayed trains were just written on a whiteboard near the ticket desk. It took quite awhile to find said whiteboard. There was also another train with the same name leaving at the exact same time but heading in the other direction, which was very confusing. In any case, we three Georgetown grads did manage to figure it out eventually, and after some triple checking, we got on the train without too much fanfare.
The second class air-conditioned cabin we reserved was not nearly as lux as we had become accustomed to, given the level of service at our last hotel. We weren't expecting much, though, so it was fine, though the train was needlessly dark. The whole train car was lit by like two dim, bare fluorescent light bulbs, and all the windows were either tinted or just very dirty. This was a shame since the views out the window were quite lovely, though less lovely once you realized that the toilet in the train car was just a hole in the floor opening onto the tracks. I have now marked several meters of Kerala with my urine.
Upon boarding, we did get into a bit of an altercation with two attorneys from Montreal who were backpacking through India with no plan for like six weeks, and who were in our seats when we got aboard. "These girls are very crunchy granola for attorneys," I thought to myself, "but not nearly as crunchy granola as the white girl at our last hotel who thought wearing a sari was totally appropriate after being in India one day." After we sorted the seat situation out, they were very actually quite pleasant, and marveled that there had been toilet paper everywhere we had been so far.
They got off the train after a bit in Allepy (where our houseboat tour ended yesterday), and so we settled in and closed the curtains to our four-berth cabin area in an attempt to stop the water/coffee/vegetable patty/tea salesmen from coming in every 15 minutes. Unfortunately, the curtains didn't seem to stop them at all. In fact, it might have encouraged them, and certainly closing the curtains robbed us of any warning that these peddlers might bust in at any moment.
Five C+ hours later, we arrived in Trivandrum, where we were met by a driver who took us to our next hotel. I will say that this hotel is decidedly less nice than the last, which was unfortunate as I was looking forward to being supremely well taken care of during our three days of beach time, but the place is passible, so I won't complain. It too has toilet paper.
So, that's about it for now. We're settling it to watch a movie on HBO (which is in English with English subtitles, as the American English accent is difficult to understand when your first language is Indian English, as it is for many people here in India). Stay classy, San Diego.
Monkey sightings: no change, unless you count the monkey at Christina's birthday party in Mommy Dearest, which I watched on my iPod on the train.
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