Kerala

Diary for Endless Summer 3
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the trip rolls on
2006-03-04 to 2006-03-09

hello again, we have been in southern India for over 3 weeks now. Taking full advantage of our 007 beach house Matt and I have quickly adjusted to the pace changes between here and hectic Cochin city. Lazy days swimming in the Arabian sea and canoeing through the back waters is how our days go, no concept of time, date, resposibilty ha ha! We visited the nearest tiny cinema and took in a Malyanan movie - pretty awfull but good crack for a penny. 3 bloody hours long and you can do pretty much what ever you like - spitting tabacco, smoking anything, drinking booze, chatting and dancing are all encouraged throughout the film.

We woke up one morning and bumped into the don - Davedas. It was around 9 o`clock am. He speaks no english but signalled us to follow him which we did. He kept repeating "Rosi, Rosi, Rosi" which we later found out to be the name of a village lady who brews her own liquor - also called Rosi. Over two tree tunk bridges to her house we got sat down and slowly more blokes started to join us. After a couple of glasses of not bad tasting booze I asked what was in it and told it was Rosi`s secret blend of exotic fresh fruit and fine alcohol. Turns out to be radom red berries and PURE alcohol. We ended up getting smashed by 11am and decided we`d take the lads to the nearest boozer for some `normal drinks`. On the way out we waved Rosi goodbye and matt lost his balance on both tree trunk bridge. Managing to save his ipod and my camera by clinging to a piece of wire hanging from trees both times while Davedas hauled his ass to the banks. Staggering through the shrimp farms we made it to the bar and drank half litre bottles of London Pilsner til 6pm. Then back to Davedas` for a feast of Shrimp, fish fry, crab, rice and chipatis. Sweeeeeeet.

Mathai also donned some traditional Kerelan dress - standard checked cotton shirt with kick ass skirt although Matt`s looked suspect - lots of pink!

We meet a family from Tibet and their son who was getting his first look at the ocean. Completely stoked.

Other than that its been kick back central.

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KERALA
DIARY OF JONNO N MATT
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arrival

2006-02-27 to 2006-03-03

really hot. crazy cab ride from airport - realised how they squeezed 1billion people in this country now. 2nd most dangerous place to drive on earth. people drive on paths, through shops, rivers...they really don`t care. Hotel nice, really friendly family. walked into city - wow. Smiled and said hello to half a billion dudes, insane. Everyone is so stoked to see us. Only white faces. Sweet. Binish, son of the owners of our first hotel(www.cochinn.com) - is an indian guy who lives in Estonia who`s parents own a killer beach house (KUZHUPILLY BEACH HOUSE) and said we could rent it if we were interested. Binish has been a legend so far and the most helpful guy you could hope to meet. 30 minute bus ride of death and we arrive in the back waters of kerela. Amazing! palm trees, shrimp farms 5 km of beach to ourselves and a PIMPing beach house to ourselves. No tourists here robbo. Been adopted by local fishing community who insist we eat 75 meals of shrimp and fresh seafood per day. these are the friendliest people you`ll ever meet. Decided to chill with them and go fishing for a few weeks. Absolute paradise. Whoever said this Indian travelling malarcky would be impoverish and grotty should check this spot out. We are the first foreigners to hang out with these dudes and they are perpetually stoked. They took us to a once a year Hindu festival with 10,000 locals and 22 elephants all rocking out til the early hours. We ended up jumping in some crazy trance like state to some killer hindi drum beats before the most unsafe fireworks display blew us away. then back for more prawns. 2 days on the trott we have been up at 5am to hit the ocean fishing - thinking about Jono and Matts Bubba gump shrimping business for oz. Work is finished by 8.30am so lots of time to Chill and drink insane coconut tree sap which when mixed with yeast turns into turbo booooooooze. We eat all our food in palm tree huts and have forgotten how to use cuttlery. The Don of the village is a guy called Davedas - what he says goes and he has just taken us under his wing so we are at the top of the pecking order, truly local legends! We have a 6 strong entorage (women and children included) everywhere we go, even if its just to the bus stop - these folks are looking after us so well and keep calling me freddy flintoff and matt is now mathai (a portugese god) ok all for now, later skaters.

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