Excerpted from letters to be sent...

20/12/05 - The Kathakali dancing was interesting, but difficult to follow.  It involved heavily made up dancers playing different roles w/ lots of narrative singing and loud drumming.  The dancing itself wasn't very active, but was quite precise, with the hand gestures alone amounting to a kind of sign language.  Unfortunately, we didn't understand any of the languages involved, so after 2 hrs. we slipped out during an interlude between scenes.

 

21/12/05 - At the moment I'm cruising along the backwaters and canals of Kerala, between Alappuzha (Allepey) and Kottayam.  It's beautiful out here, going from village to village, with paddy fields stretching out behind the palm-lined shore.  Earlier, as we were approaching one of the docks we saw a little boy with his backpack on, running to get to the ferry we're on, racing us.  He made it with enough time left over to wait in the short line.  Just a few minutes ago we passed a dock where the only passengers waiting were a family of goats.  The man who makes sure the boat stays against the dock (either by tying or just holding it there) shooed them away, as one passenger got off.

 

Yesterday, as we were taking the tourist cruise from Kollam (Quilon) up to Alappuzha, we went by an ashram, with huge highrises for housing pilgrims.  The guru there is known as the "hugging Mama" because she gives everyone a big hug after darshan (teaching, I think).  We weren't able to get off and visit, because the boat didn't stay for very long and we don't have time to stay overnight there.  That worked out though, because according to a couple people who got on the boat when we did stop, a couple days before there had been a big event, w/ the President of India visiting.  After that the guru had left, and the place was pretty quiet.

 

When we got into Alappuzha, we were informed that a music festival was going on, a 10-day affair, and after finding a guest house, doing some laundry, and washing up, we headed into town, and found the street by the main temple packed with vendors, a giant, lighted sign, and the street overhung with lights and silver streamers.  A group was performing classical Indian music inside the temple grounds, and it was broadcast from loudspeakers all along the street.  One thing we forgot to bring was earplugs.  We'll have to go find some soon.  For this ferry ride we've been using wads of toilet paper to block our ears.