BED BUGS!

BED BUGS!

Sunday, Nov. 5, 2006--Kochi

Last night, I ate at a local restaurant that was recommended by some local businessmen, since it was still raining when I left the cyber cafe. I had chilly chicken with parota flat bread. It was okay, but it wasn't as good as I had hoped. I just haven't found any excellent local places to eat in Kochi for some reason.

They changed the sheets on my beds when I was out at the cyber cafe and restaurant last night. These new ones were infested with bed bugs. I have read that they are a problem in many hotels even in America now. And I have encountered them before on travels. This was the first time on this trip. It's a horrible experience. They are so tiny, yet one can feel them crawling and biting. It's impossible to find and kill them. I was awakened around 2:30 a.m. itching from their bites and couldn't go back to sleep for a long time. I just read until I got so tired that their bites wouldn't keep me awake. Then I slept again until 8 a.m.

Some observations/comments:

1. Kids in all the major tourist centers in all countries these days ask if you have a pen to give them. Apparently some guidebook author suggested that tourists could take ballpoint pens with them and give them out to friendly neighborhood kids as they traveled. Well, it has created a monster. I'm asked at least 15-20 times a day if I have a pen I can give a child. Unless I am off the main tourist circuit, I know when a child starts being friendly that he is going to ask for a pen.

2. I haven't had any alcohol now for about 7 weeks. The last time I had any was with a meal in Vietnam. None of the sidewalk places in Thailand where I ate served beer. And selling it is VERY restricted in all the southern states of India. The government licenses only places attached to big hotels to serve beer. It's caused by a reaction to men drinking up all their paychecks and the women pressuring the government to control where it can be drunk (to try to keep it in places where their husbands wouldn't be welcome). Of course, as I wrote last year, it has had an unexpected affect. The local men now meet in dark, out-of-the-way places and drink a home brew that includes anti-freeze. Occasionally a batch is made incorrectly, and 2-3 men die from drinking it. So now the women have to worry both about the paychecks still being spent on alcohol and about the possibility that the alcohol their husbands are drinking could kill them.

I ate Chinese food for lunch today. It was so nice for a change. I went looking for an ATM machine and found a Chinese restaurant on the way. I had garlic chicken with rice. And the rice was WONDERFUL basmati rice rather than the bland local rice that is served with southern Indian food.

I met Shyam in the afternoon and spent about 2 hours with him. He's a hotel management student who hopes to be working in a large 4- or 5-star hotel when he graduates in 6 months.

Monday, Nov. 6, 2006--Kochi to Coimbatore

I was up and at the train station by 6 a.m. It was due to the bed bugs. I couldn't sleep well for them biting me, so I finally got up at 4:30 and packed, bathed, checked out of the hotel, and walked to the station. I still had a wait of slightly more than an hour before my train pulled into the station, but it was better than being in bed and being bitten by bugs. By the way, I asked for my senior citizens discount (30%) when I bought my ticket.

I'm going to be spending a few days in the hills. Coimbatore is in the foothills. From here, I will go to Canoor and Ooty which are high up in the hills and have cold weather. I got a disappointment about my plans when I arrived here, though. I was planning to take an old steam train to Canoor--one that was featured in A Passage to India. But I was told by the tourist office that the train is not running because there was a major landslide. They had heavy rains in this area about 1-2 weeks ago; I guess that's what caused the landslide. How sad that I must miss the train ride. It's considered one of the great ones in the world.

It's one month until I will be in Copenhagen. And it's only 35 days until I will be back in Texas. I'm looking forward to both. I'm getting tired of traveling. In fact, I feel tired today. I don't have much oomph for getting out and doing anything.

I ate some banana fritters on the train and let that be my lunch. They were good, huge ones. But I am hungry for dinner. Hope I can find a good place to eat tonight. Then I will go to bed and try to sleep well after my two buggy nights!

Note: Cyber cafes in hill resorts are expensive and have slow Internet connections. Therefore, if I don't make another entry for 3-4 days, it will be because I'm postponing it until I get back to good, cheap connections. Instead, I will be hiking and enjoying the cool atmosphere of the hills.