Enduring Kochi

The next morning I wake feeling slightly nauseous and with a slight headache. Already.
I assume quickly that this is not because i have eaten anything dodgy (I ate only one non-airplane-related dish yesterday and it was entirely vegetarian). It's also not because I gargled with the tap-water after brushing my teeth (i didn't even swallow the stuff). It's simply because every time i inhale, eveything i come into contact with, all i touch, smell or taste, even everything that i see, is covered with bacteria that is entirely alien to my body. I picture them looking like microscopic angry spiders with stumpy legs floating about in the soupy air around me. I was not designed to be in this environment. My immune system is being bombarded from all sides. I'm being slowly poisoned via osmosis. I figure that after a few days, I'll build up a tolerance but also resign myself to the fact that this might just be the base-level sickness I am to expect and that rather than get better, i'll just get used to it.
Maybe i actually just shouldn't have gargled the tap-water.
I'll keep doing it anyway. Perhaps my body will build up its own antibody.

After a civilised breakfast of omlette, cinamon toast and watermelon washed down with strong locally-grown coffee and eaten to the strains of Edith Piaf, I decide to rent a motorbike and see what this town has to offer in the daytime. First though, a haircut.
I've decided to take it all off. A combination of it actually being quite long, me being very hot, the slight risk of lice, and the continued onset of baldness, has brought me to this. I find a suitably odd-looking beauty parlour, where a visibly stoned, moustachioed youth expertly takes a cut-throat razor to my head and face while a banghra version of Michael Jackson's Dangerous plays in the background. Bizarrely, the only bit of my skin that gets nicked is my nose. He washes my hair before and my head afterwards, and although in the past, I have been asked to lean backwards into the washsink, here the custom appears to uncomfortably put your head in face-first, not unlike what i understand the theory behind waterboarding is. The whole thing takes the best part of 45 mins and as i look at myself in the mirror, I have two thoughts:
(a) Actually that looks pretty cool! I just need to get the head the same colour as the face.
(b) Startled, shaven monkey. Have my ears always looked like that?
My fears were immediately put to rest upon exiting the barber shop, when a beggar sitting outside whistled and said "Hey, FightClub!"
I thnk that's what he said, anyway. Rather pleased at having been compared to Brad Pitt (or at least someone beaten up by him - hmmm, maybe Meatloaf!), i toss him the change left over from my haircut.

Driving a motorbike in India appears to be much the same as any other developing nation. The roads in Kerala are notoriously bad, so people tend to swerve around a lot to avoid potholes, loose bits of wood, other vehicles, piles of burning rubble, cows, cats and goats. Hitting any of these could be dangerous, but as they are considered to be holy animals here, hitting a cow could prove deadly if witnessed infront of a particularly religious mob.
I'm pretty sure they drive on the left here, but as ever, it's pretty difficult to tell, as most people aim for the middle.

As i tour Kochi, i detect through the smog, a familiar smell that i have not encountered for a very long time. It took me a long time to work it out, that strange, sweet, spicy burning smell.
I was transported back to a field in 1994. The Wonderstuff were playing their last gig and Iggy Pop was on next. I'd just seen Lee Evans do his Bohemian Rhapsody mime sketch and I was now lounging with my feet sticking out of a tent wondering whether to buy acid or not.
Bidi's! They were an odd concotion of illicit herbs and spices, wrapped in a brittle tobacco leaf and fastened with string to be smoked. I'd bought a load of them at the Phoenix Festival with my cousin Jascha, thinking that they contained hash. We spent the rest of the summer smoking them, imagining ourselves high. They were, and i'm sure still are, horrible, and all the men here seem to smoke them.
I decide not to buy any, even though through the haze of nostalgia, they appear quite appealing. I shall try not to smoke this holiday, quite a difficult task when you're travelling by yourself for a bit, as it's a good time-filler. I figure the quality of the air here means that i'm likely to be inhaling enough noxious fumes without voluntarily adding to them.

I continue along the road on my Enfield.
"It's brand new," the guy had said at the motorbike rental place.
I looked at the quite obviously ancient machine. It was army-green and I would have been amazed to discover it was less than 60years old. Post-war, I reckon, but only just. The fuel gauge and speedometer were broken and it required a pretty solid kick to get it started, but it looked bloody cool.

"How much for the day?"

He said it would be the equivilent of about 5 pounds so I said i'd take it. He said i'd have to wait 10 minutes for him to syphon all the petrol out.

You gotta love India.

On the way through Kochi to find the synagogue (the oldest in India and as far as i can tell, significant only because of it's location: India), I found myself behind an open-backed goods vehicle. I considered overtaking it, but with the amount of honking, swearing and waving going on and the number of cows, goats and dogs i had already nearly collided with, i decided to hang back. It was then that i noticed the goods being hauled.
I couldn't tell exactly what it was - sacks of something, possibly rice or lentils - but each was emblazoned with a series of swastikas. Now, I know that before being adopted by the Nazis, the swastika was an ancient buddhist symbol. I'd seen it in temples accross South East Asia. However, here, it just seemed a little odd.
I was driving a war-era motorbike through dusty foreign streets, in pursuit of a truck containing Nazi cargo. It was like a scene from Indiana Jones. I even had a skinhead! If only i had army fatigues and a monocle, i could have been the most perfect extra.

The synagogue was underwealming. The guy outside wouldn't let me in because i was wearing shorts, so i waited until he started berating a fat lady with a skirt on and slipped past. Not much to see, although very pretty tiles and an elaborate golden ark. The guy caught me on my way out and started shouting at me in some Indian dialect. I had no idea what he was saying, but i'm sure he was telling me off for being disrespectful. I offered him a note, 100rupees, which i think is just over a pound, and he took it greedily, smiling immediately and patting me on the back. Jews... They're the same the world over.
Outside I spotted a sign bearing the words "Sassoon Hall", an indication that some of my Jewish ancestors, The Sassoons had at some point had a hall named after them, i guess.

I decided it was time to leave Kochi. The place was pretty dull, not very attractive and i felt that i'd gotten everything out of it that i was likely to. I would leave for Munnar in the morning, a destination chosen almost at random because i liked the picture of the mountains in the guidebook.
I have to get up at 5am in order to catch the bus. That's the problem with these holidays, you actually never feel that rested because you always have to get up early. Despite Munnar only being 160km away, I am told the journey will take between 4 and 5 hours. When you see the state of the buses and the roads though, you can believe it.
I buy an alarm. It's a little plastic imitation cuckoo-clock, the only one i could find at the market and go back to the hotel to sort out my stuff.
Posing with my new haircut for a bit infront of the mirror, i decide that i actually could look pretty menacing if i pull the right face, like one of those nutters in the crowd at a Henry Rollins concert. I also consider the prospect that i might end up being the only person i know to have gone to India and come back fatter.
I know it's still early days, but maybe i should go out and buy some seafood from those guys on the front. Just to be safe.