Ernakulam

Trip Start Oct 10, 2007

Trip End Jun 26, 2008

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Flag of India Ernakulam, India
Saturday, December 15, 2007

Sunday in Ernakulem, and for the first time so far on our trip there is a tangible "Sunday Feeling" in the air. Most of the shops are closed and shuttered down, traffic is to a minimum, and a feeling of calm and a slowing down in the hectic pace of life here is really noticeable. Actually it's bliss.

We rose late having stayed up til midnight watching Jurassic Park (tosh). Our hotel room is great, clean and cosy with a tv; we wouldn't want one in every place we stay (gotta keep it real), but now and then, especially when we're somewhere for 3-4 nights it's a real boon to stay in with some nibbles and experience the escapism that only Friends can provide. I'd like to say we use the opportunity to catch up on Indian current affairs and world news, but in reality we search for HBO and find a moooveeee. Recently we have seen Back to the Future (top ten greatest films of all time - 1 point 21 gigawatts!), Men in Black (foolish but atchable), Predator (purlease) and an early Jean Claude Van Damme (No Retreat, No Surrender) which was so awful it must have been made as a bet

???

.

It's been important to us to make each hotel room feel homely, as we're often scurrying back there hot, tired and occasionally slightly overwrought. We've amassed some items titled "Things to make us feel at home" which we bring out in each place, and like (a slightly less annoying) Linda Barker and Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen we tweak and jsuz until we have the room just so. The items consist of a buddha (given to us by the new owner of Bertha, our car), a brass incense holder, a wooden Ganesh (to overcome obstacles - he'll have an obstacle of his own to overcome trying to get through Australian Customs but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it) and a wooden box. Random but comforting. We also have a bedspread which i bought in Delhi as most hotel rooms don't provide a top sheet, and it just is not cosy enough without one.

To supplement this we have also just bought a neon orange and pink cardboard Christmas star to hang precariously from the televison aerial. These are all the rage here, the streets look great with hundreds of them in different colours waving about in the breeze. In the continued spirit of flouting all known health and safety guidelines, these flammable cardboard decorations are placed over bare lightbulbs, the glow is lovely if hazardous.
After another great breakfast in the Indian Coffee House just down the road from the hotel, the rest of the day is given over to rest, and a foray into the streets in a mo to find some sort of newspaper, easier said than done in a Communist state.