Exploring India

        Last night, Jackie told Heather and I about the tuktuk driver she had.  Tuktuks are just motorized rickshaws that are used as taxis.  His name was Ashraf, and she said she had a great time with him.  We decided to give him a call, because we needed something to do.

          The driving in India is crazy.  There were so many close calls, it was ridiculous.  The whole time Heather was making her silly noises, and Ashraf would just laugh at her!  We almost ran into two cows.  They were so close, their noses were in our tuktuk.  The first thing he showed us was the fish market from afar, and then he showed us a spice market.

          He took us to many shops, which sold all of the same things.  They tried to sell us bedspreads, rugs and carpets, jewelry, and so many other things.  I ended up buying a sari, three pairs of pants, and a scarf, but I did not want to spend any more money.  We spent a lot of the day shopping, and after a while it got annoying, so I said no more.  He continued to take us shopping though!  The Indian people really know how to sell.  They believe that selling anything, even if it’s cheap, is better than selling nothing.  We probably went to six stores with all the same products and method of selling.

          He showed us a Jewish synagogue.  Apparently the Jewish population is very small in Kerala, made up of only one family.  We also saw the oldest church in Kerala, which was built by the Portuguese in the 1600s.

          We asked him to take us to get henna, which are natural, temporary tattoos.  They are mostly used by women who are about to get married, but Heather and I got some.  The tattoo can last a few weeks if you know how to take care of it.  You can’t really use soap on it, or it will disappear so fast.

          The last thing we did was see Kathkali dance.  They used mostly facial expressions, specifically eye movements.  It was crazy to see how they could move their faces.  They also showed us what the different hand symbols mean.  We got to see a traditional martial arts performance as well.  The only probably was that because the power is so sporadic in India, it kept going out, stopping the performance.  We got to see probably half an hour, of the hour long show. 

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