"All Cool All the Time"

~
Alapuzzha, here we are. Also known as Alleppey. This is supposed to be the "Venice of the East" -- a little town that has become Kerala's backwater (house)boat ride capital. And it's a new thing: Blondie and I were here four years ago and it was nothing like as touristy or as polished as it has become. I should add that I've no complaints about tourisitiness in itself, places go through these cycles of becoming popular, becoming too popular and then going through a decline. I'm sure there were fewer tourists, fewer "guest houses" or "heritage homes" and certainly fewer houseboats on offer at Alleppey when Blondie and I were here. But I'm fond of indoor plumbing and if the cost of that is the sight of a few more hippy-dippy Western tourists in the town, well, I'm prepared to pay it. I also imagine that in a place of this size -- the town is a bare 3.5 km wide -- tourism, even on this scale, creates employment and wealth for the local population.

The "heritage home" we've ended up in is lovely -- nearly 200 years old and with modern plumbing installed! Doesn't get any better, at least not in my book. It's an interesting place in that it's clearly catering (in this season anyway) to the Western tourist trade: there are mostly white folks here and they are mostly in the 20-30 age range. So they're not quite the 18 year old backpackers heading for the beach parties... but they're looking for a place to kick back and relax, drink a few beers and while the days away. I'm generalizing but I suspect that a lot of the people here would be willing to not step outside the welcoming walls of our "home" -- there's reasonably good food and reasonably expensive beer on hand, they can be consumed in the tropical lushness of a beautifully watery garden or on your own private verandah space and the rooms are great for the prices they're going for. You can walk in here and leave behind the hassles of being a traveler in India -- no desperate kids beg from you within these walls, no sights of abject poverty or deprivation meet your eyes here. Inside here, it is as one of the 20-something boys (yes, I know but they are really boys -- barely that much older than the school kids who line up to say hello to Canadian Tourist and shake her hand) said to me, it's
"all cool all the time." I understand the appeal of this, especially after our experiences in Jaipur and Agra, but I also resent the fact that I (and pretty much every Western tourist I've encountered in India) can walk into these safe havens and walk away from the reality of life in India for the poor and the weak.

Ok, rant and confession of conflicted self-criticism over. Incidentally, we were greeted at Alleppey station by a Bob Dylan wannabe, wearing a "The Times, they are a Changing" t-shirt and sporting a Dylan circa 1966 haircut. I don't know that the times are a-changing in the way Dylan imagined but... I was chatted up the owner and a friend of his, who were intrigued by my Indian but not quite self and in the process, I was told that "no one works here, everyone is free to do what they want." Hmmmm. Ok, but someone did cook that Garlic Fish we had. And I don't know what freedom had to do with that.

The chatting up happened after we'd eaten, as we lazed on rattan chairs outside our room. It was such a funny little session that I found it entertaining; poor Canadian Tourist found it a little alarming, I think, since she stayed with me for all of it, though I know she was really tired. But I figured if a chatting up starts with a discussion of family and progresses through a recitation of your qualifications, employment and residence history before turning into 20 questions, there is more curiosity involved in it than anything else. I think it's partly them trying to figure out how I fit into their binary model of "decent" Indian woman or not. On the "decent" side of the column for is that I tend to be fairly well covered up with clothing and that I'm traveling with Canadian Tourist, who is clearly old enough to be my mother (or my mother in law!) and therefore am only indulging in immoral sexual escapades (please spare me your lurid imaginings -- I'll just say that the Indian imagination when it comes to this stuff is pretty conventional). Also I speak Hindi, Kannada and Tamil and have a smattering of Malayalam, and I can hold forth in great detail about my family in Bangalore and Mysore (a sign of authenticity, that) all of which makes it hard for them to dismiss me as a complete tourist. On the other hand though -- and I do get that this is a big deal -- I'm clearly not traveling as Indian women travel. We're back to that question again. I'm reminded of the fact that when the first of my female cousins to marry wanted to visit her parents, her younger brother was dispatched to fetch her and escort her back on the overnight train journeys that visiting her parents involved. It was -- and by most accounts, it still is -- considered inappropriate for young women, married or single, to travel alone or even in a pair, without familial male escort of some sort. Why, Infosys Grrl -- who's just turned 30, btw -- wasn't allowed to go to North India with only me for company.