Thursday 27 July
The last couple days have definitely felt transitional.
Wednesday was saying rushed goodbyes to volunteers in the morning in Parassini (and not having time to do proper goodbyes or take that laundry list of photos I was hoping to get in town), leaving the house in a mad dash to get to the hotel early so we could get online and figure out where to go and where to stay, taking advantage of being in a normal sized town (instead of a village) and running errands. Noon felt more like 6 pm.
Wednesday evening was spent mostly in our rooms, relaxing, enjoying the ocean view from our window, processing the last couple weeks, and taking advantage of having wifi and escaping the raging palm tree bending storm outside.
This morning (Thursday) was a bit of an early wake up call to catch a 7:55 train. The four if us broke off into two groups, one was going south to explore Cochin, the other three of us on our way north to Mangalore.
The train ride was mercifully short at about three hours. We met a few locals in our second class AC compartment who had lots of questions about where we were from, where we had been in Kerala, and why we were here. In retrospect we must have been a sight, three Western Woman, one of Indian descent wearing U of M t shirt and yoga pants, and a blond and me wearing Indian clothing.. all three of us chatting and giggling like ridiculous teenagers.
When we arrived in Mangalore our little band of three broke up- Smita (my fellow American in the volunteer group) grabbed a cab to the airport to fly to Mumbai and on to Family, and Eveline and I off to a close by hotel for a night (fee wifi!!) to plan the next leg of our trip- Goa.
Today had been transitional in that its the first day I felt like I was really done with the program and now a tourist in India. Meandering around Mangalore I had another one of those moments - oh, heh, yeah, right, I'm in India!!
Remember what I said about not being able to get Northern Indian food in the south? Yeah, I was wrong :) Naan is not as readily available, but we found a little local hole in the wall lunch spot with Northern as well as Indo-Chineese fusion food, with silver wear!!! And it was awesome. At one point the kitchen started making a new dish and some of the dry spices caught the fan and it was eye wateringly intense. Never a dull moment in this country.
Mangalore is definitely a lot more modern than Parassini, you can tell by the shops, the way people (women) dress, and holy shit I actually saw a few woman driving mopeds!! It still has a ton of h-I-larious signs and sights.
So, at the end of the day we have train tickets for Goa, a place to stay and a general plan for when we get there, have full bellies from a really lovely (and spicy, shocking :) dinner and a very air conditioned clean room to pass out in. All in all, a good day, and hopefully the last one where I am spending more time planning than exploring this crazy, always an adventure, never a dull moment country.
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