Thrivananthapuram

Everything you have heard is true, it's crazy here! Well, that's how it seems at first. I confirmed this with our friend, Lakshmi, that Indians don't see queueing as the way to do things: you just get in as quickly as you can, moving in front of people if there is a space. This applies most appropriately to the traffic, where it seems to be the rule. Even staying on your side of the road in the face of oncoming traffic is not essential. You just use your horn continually to signal forward that they're going too slow and/or you're going to pass them, watch out. Much like Cairo, except no traffic lights. We drove non-stop for a good twenty minutes or so through the city. Since everyone follows the same principles, it just works, but it looks like mayhem. It's funny when these same principles are enacted in getting on board a plane, where seats are ticketed and there is absolutely no need to rush. Even at the check-in counter, a gap of half a metre between myself and the person before me in the queue was politely pointed out by the Indian behind me. It was as though if I didn't close it up, someone else would simply jump in, which seems ridiculous to me, but quite possibly would happen! Even when we're waiting at the gates, the mere presence of the officials and an announcement caused dozens to jump up and crowd the doors before they were opened. They still had to stand there and wait for a good ten minutes, but the seemed content to do so for ten hours - they weren't going to lose their spot at the front, for their ticketed seat on the aeroplane. It's funny stuff to watch.

Kerala means "God's own country", and it is very lush here, verdant and tropical. It's a gentle introduction to India, too, since malaria was eradicated twenty years ago and the tap-water is safe to drink (though heavily chlorinated), one really only has to worry about toilets: the infrequency thereof and complete absence of toilet-paper.

We have curry for breakfast, lunch and dinner, which we eat with our hands. I have mastered the technique of using my right hand only. I had to covertly watch Arjay in order to learn how to tear shreds off my roti with only one hand: it's not hard at all, you just pinch and wiggle your fingers. The food is delicious, though, make no mistake! We haven't had the same curry twice yet. Vegetable curries, egg curry, chicken curry, fish curry: mildly spicy. Served either with roti (bread, but not necessarily like roti in Melbourne), rice or this morning it was a mixture of ground rice and coconut. The roti you break off and scoop up with curry with, the rice you just mix in and scoop up with your hand. There's a technique to the hand scooping: as Westeners, we automatically try to place the food in our mouth like a piece of cake, which doesn't work when you're dealing with a mixture of rice and curry. You just need to fully rotate your hand when you bring it up to your mouth so that it's like a scoop.

We are staying with Prakash (Lakshmi's father), his sister Prema, her husband Arjay and their children Jay and Shree Pranjani. They all speak a mixture of good to very good English, and are fantastic hosts. We watched the Germany vs Argentina game with them last night - I only caught the second half onwards, but it was pretty good. A couple of people now have told me how much they admire our cricketers - I just smile and nod.

Have already taken quite a few photos of just life going by on the street. Mostly taken from the car actually, so I hope they are not too blurry. There is a pre-wedding celebration tonight, with the actual wedding (between Lakshmi and Vinod) tomorrow morning.