The southern state of Kerala is a very relaxed, stunningly beautiful and surprisingly clean place with a ridiculous number of palm trees. The state holds the distinction of a 100% literacy rate and a good percentage of the Indian professionals working abroad (lots in the US!) are from this state. It's famous for its backwaters (lagoons, canals and lakes just inland from the sea) and a highlight for me was an 8-hour boat cruise yesterday between the cute market towns of Kollam to Alappuzha. I just realized I've been on the west coast of India now for three days and I have yet to go stick my foot in the Arabian Sea.

In Alappuzha, Chris spent his day at the local swimming pool and I wandered around town. We met up for dinner and a movie. There were two choices: a crime drama or a comedy, both in Malayalam (the state language) with no subtitles. We chose the comedy; Vamanapuram Bus Route figuring it would be easier to follow. It wasn't, but at least during the 2 1/2 hour film my patience was rewarded with three over-produced song and dance numbers that did not fail to send me into fits of uproarious laughter.

I could go off about how bad the acting was, how jumpy the cuts, how poor the cinematography, how misguided the editing; but I'll be content just to point out this small fact. There was absolutely no eye candy for me to enjoy during this film. None. The film even had a big star in it, Mohan Lal, and let me tell you folks, he's ugly! How an overweight, middle-aged, grossly-mustachioed, eyeliner-wearing, lip-synching dude ends up with a nubile hottie like Lakshmi Gopalaswamy is just beyond me. I didn't understand the movie and so assumed he was this chick's father only to later bear witness to a song/dance number that proved otherwise. (Kissing is not allowed onscreen, but there were definitely some meaningful head-tilts away from the camera.)

Chris and I have a theory that in India, movies are made by men for men, and so the heroes in movies are depicted as every-man types to make fantasies seem all the more accessible to the audience. I further posit that, in cooperation with the Indian government, Bollywood is attempting to squash all sexual desire in women by convincing them that there really are no good looking men in the country.

Here are some other fun gross generalizations about Indian society based on 2 1/2 week's observations in a geographic area representative of roughly 10% of the nation's population.

1) The only women who drink in public are prostitutes and westerners.
Meanwhile, Indian men unabashedly line up outside the liquor stores to buy their goods, presumably to inbibe with each other in some back alley, which they will later use as a shared public urinal.
2) Women don't eat out.
The only ones who do are with their families and then they usually eat in a special designated family room.
3) Women don't swim.
I saw it in Mamallapuram and Chennai: women and girls wading up to their ankles while fully clothed. And Chris said that even though there was a women's locker room at the pool, there was not a female in sight.
4) I am an evil temptress.
While in America, Britney makes abs and smalls-of-backs scandalous, here in India, a glimpse of midsection is commonplace. Only hussies, however, let their ankles and shoulders emerge. I have yet to figure out how to prevent such exposure and not die of heat exhaustion.


Kochi came highly recommended but is proving to be not quite what either of us were looking for. It's hard to put my finger on what does it for me, but I do know that cute, quiet, touristy towns with good restaurants sound really nice at first, but the times when I feel the happiest, the most challenged and the most alive are when the locals outnumber me by about 10,000:1. Given what we've heard from other travelers plus our own experiences, Chris and I are beginning to think the North might offer a bit more of what we're after.

We will leave tomorrow for Bangalore, a city that might sound familiar to some of you. It's home to some staggering number of employees working off-shore for American companies, including my very own former employer, Siebel. It's also where a huge number of call centers are based, so next time you call tech support, there's a good chance you're calling Bangalore.

Happy February. My god, where is the time going.