Weekend in Kerala

First off, let me apologize for my extreme tardiness concerning updates...and now, an account of my BEACH weekend in India.

The weekend began on Friday with a tour of the Government Ayurveda Hospital in Mysore. We saw lots of fun plants and minerals that make up the hospital's pharmacopoeia. We also saw the dissection room. Little did we know that while we chatted with the med students (shown here with Jenna), the doctors were rolling out a human corpse. Most of the flesh was gone except for the legs and it was pretty juicy. Needless to say, we weren't really prepared for this, and yet, I couldn't stop staring in shock at the complete nonchalance of the doctors and the not-so-sterile conditions in which they were dissecting a human body. Anyway, it was quite an experience. After our tour, we had to sit through an excrutiating lecture before departing for the beach.
Getting to the beach was one of the scariest adventures I've ever had. Robbie (I am pretty sure that is not how you spell his name, but that's how we pronounced it) was a great driver, but the road conditions were highly questionable. First, the rain started to pour like buckets from the sky. Next thing you know, there is a group of five to six men charging towards our van with red painted faces, shouting and chanting with musical instruments. In a state of shock, I realized we were essentially trapped in the car with no idea what they were about to do. I panicked when Robbie started to roll down his window, but then he pulled out a rupee to give the men, and they went away, chanting and dancing, just like they had come. Obvious that we were confused, Robbie just smirked and replied, "first rain." The rest of the way we saw villages celebrating the "first rain." The rain wasn't so bad as we started our trek up the mountain through the jungle, but coming down the other side was a different story. For two hours, Robbie maneuvered through mud and potholes on essentially a dirt and gravel broken narrow road. We joked it was like being on a ride at a theme park...what was happening couldn't possibly be really happening. To make matters worse, we were in the middle of the jungle and literally passed no sign of life, not even a little hut, for that 2 hours. Translation: we could have crashed and had no where to turn for help. There were several vehicles trying to make it up the mountain, but eventually the buses were forced to pull over in their failed attempts to combat the muddy mess. Luckily, as night began to fall, we reached Kerala (and a real road) and by the grace of God were safe in our hotel rooms.
The next morning we convinced Robbie to take us to the beach; apparently Indians usually go to the beach in the evening, which after the massive sunburns we acquired, we understood perfectly.
Once the town caught wind of the rumour of Westerners at the beach, small groups started forming around us. It seemed as if they were just waiting to see what we would do. Of course, we weren't too exciting. We mostly just sat on the beach reading and listening to music all morning, but the townies did get a kick of us playing in the ocean. As the only women to get in (the rest of the woman were in chudidars and sarees), we were quite a sight. We stayed until lunchtime and then used the heat of the afternoon to explore the town a bit.

On Saturday, we went back to the beach in the morning, but had to return to the hotel in the afternoon for our Ayurvedic massages. Now, knowing what we did about Ayurveda, you would think that we would have expected some pretty crazy massage methods. Nothing could have prepared me for the experience. The women and I prayed beforehand, and then throughout the massage, the masseuse sang healing mantras. She lathered me in so much oil, I had the feeling I was being marinated for the human sacrificial offering (used in the earliest times of the Veda). The massage focused not on muscle relaxation, but her sweeping and swooping motions suggested she was trying to improve the flow of some secret force within me. After sliding around on an oily massage table, the experience ended with a steam bath, and then an actual bath to get rid of the rest of the oil. I have censored the details of this truly unique experience, but let me just say, before getting an Ayurvedic massage, come talk to me and then decide whether you want to pursue such a treatment.
After Jess and I finished our "massages," we decided we definitely needed a beer at the hotel restaurant. Afterwards, Robbie drove us to India's longest drive-in beach. Cars and rickshaws can drive up and down the coast on the sand and it's a popular hangout spot. The beach is very clean and beautiful. Unfortunately, the clouds blocked most of the sunset, but our walk was fabulous. Emily and I danced and ran into and out of the remnants of the waves on the shore, while Taylor and Jess played it cool walking behind us. Robbie picked us up and drove up and down the beach in the dark, driving us into waves and watching the sand crabs scatter in the headlights. It was a perfect end to our beach weekend.
For fear of a repeat of Friday, we requested to leave early Sunday morning, even though Robbie wanted to go to the snake park (ah!). Luckily, Robbie found another route home which was absolutely beautiful. As we climbed the mountain road, we could see the lush green jungle valleys below us (definitely beats the Blue Ridge Parkway)! The trip had much better roads, although the majority of the trip was still rocky. We drove mostly through national parks, meaning small farming villages and a ton of wildlife preservation. The rural communities were of course very poor, and I wondered if they even had clean water to drink. I wish we had had the chance to go in and really see the inner-workings of such a village, but you obviously can't stroll in for observations. The jungle was filled with wildlife; we saw huge deer and bison right along the road. We also saw some elephants; the wild elephants live deep within the jungle, but the ones we saw were owned by the local communities.
After returning to Mysore, we asked how the rest of the group's trip to the wildlife reserve had been. Apparently the facilities were so poor, they left after one night (they didn't even want to stay the first night but could not travel back to Mysore in the dark). What did they see on their safari? some ducks and a few elephants. They were not happy when we told them about how much wildlife we had seen from the road, nor about our fabulous weekend at the beach.