2 Deiters and a Dream: holy cow! the Deiters are in India

We land in India after some luxury thanks to an upgrade to business class on Sri Lanka air. It was sweet and pretty funny to watch them try and cram in the meal and fruit juice and champagne and steamed towels and all the other goodies we Deiters deserve into the hour and fifteen minute flight. We arrive in India full of expectation and trepidation. In our travels we have run into a fair amount of people with India horror stories. Some about the dreaded "Delhi belly," others about aggressive touts, and of course plenty of garden variety wackiness involving cows. Even those who profess to love it begin with a long pause when you ask them what they thought about India as if they are trying to put together a response that won't result in you canceling your flight. After months of this we were approaching India like we were running a marathon, i.e. It's gonna be miserable while it's going on but you'll be proud you did it when it's over. Thankfully for the Deiters these people are a bunch of lying liars and Debbie downers to boot and India has been an amazing, if sometimes maddening adventure. We probably benefitted from doing diet India..er I mean Sri Lanka first so that we got a little taste of what's to come and southern India is universally understood to be way less crazy than the north (so I reserve the right to take back all the nice things I'm saying at any time) but thus far India has been wonderful and great fun as you are about to find out. Our first destination was a beach town called Varkala that is perched on a couple hundred foot tall cliffside with a strip of shops and restaurants and sets of stairs that lead down to the beach. There is a large Tibetan community here so our first meal was "momos" which are delicious little dumplings that go great with a strong ocean breeze and a cold kingfisher beer. We lazed away the afternoon from our perch on the cliffs, talking about our plans for India and coming to the realization that it was time for haircut number two because as I was droning on about the browns not having a coach, Tash almost dies laughing out of nowhere because she says my "helmet hair" would make me perfect for the job as I would be "just like one of the guys". After lunch we went down for a stroll on the beach and saw our first bizarro pack of Indian dudes in jeans and sneakers cruising the beach and staring at girls....like STARING at girls. From where I sit, the uniform for girl staring just makes it weirder. "What are you wearing to the beach? Why jeans and sneakers of course!" It's just bizarre. India gets a pass from me on a lot of things cause it's their country, I've been here for two weeks, and who am I to judge? But this ritual is just beat and will extend all the way to the move where "I'm TOTALLY not taking a picture of you on my cellphone that I have tucked under my arm so I can tell my friend on facebook that you are my girlfriend" shadiness. Anywho after walking around for a while it was dinner at our hostel and an early night cause sometimes being Deiters is exhausting. The next morning we decided on a long walk down the cliffs that we hoped would end at a restaurant Tash found that specializes in the local "keralan" cuisine. We started off by watching paragliders get ready to jump off the cliff and then wandered down to see like 7 cows nose deep in a little pond tryin to stay cool and avoid the flies. Further on was about 20 local men pulling in a giant fishing net (like fifty yards by 30 yards) then we saw a bunch of sea eagles swooping down on something...we moved up with eager anticipation, had they teamed up and caught some giant fish? Was it a beautiful nesting site with baby eagles? Nope it's a giant pile of trash....majestic.. Somebody had tossed like 1000 Styrofoam takeout boxes off the cliff onto the beach and sent these birds into a frenzy. And basically that's India, where lurking around the corner from your amazing experience is some senseless craziness that makes you wanna scream WHHHHYYYYY? It's generally a 90/10 ratio and if you can deal with that then India is amazing and if not it will consume you. But the Deiters can deal, so we pushed on lookin for the restaurant and got our first "Indian head wobble" when asking for directions. The wobble is a simultaneous combo of the yes and no head shake and covers the spectrum from absolutely yes to no way never, but is often somewhere in between. It is hilarious and maddening when you are trying to determine "if this is your bus" so as to not go 12 hours in the wrong direction and you get the wobble in place of the firm yes or no you crave. You can try to press and clarify and confirm all you want but all you're gonna get is wobble baby wobble and so you roll the dice. After some conflicting directions we walked back to the start and had lunch and found out about an open mic-ish live music thing at a bar that night. It was pretty good and if you brought anything from a sitar to a guitar you could get on stage. The people watching was even better because apparently when westerners go to India they loose their minds. You want to rock a white linen on white linen suit? Go for it. Wanna dress like Johnny Dep from pirates of the Caribbean? Done. Funky hat? Only one? Open front silk kimono? Cool. The funny thing is it's not even dressing like the locals because the locals mainly wear normal clothes (see jeans and sneakers above). It's more of the hipsterish trait of tryin real hard to look cool while also acting like your not tryin hard, harmless and often hilarious. That night (as many of you already know) ended with me drunk dialing every contact in my phone (sorry bout that) as I couldn't resist the sweet allure of viber out and good wifi. Thankfully they shut the router off before I could get down to past employers and others on the drunken "do not call" list.

The next morning brought bright rays of sunshine ...and the type of hangover that makes you hate bright rays of sunshine. As my mom would say this wound is "self inflicted" so I won't boo hoo about it but it was a long day made longer by the fact that we were homeless having checked out of our room in preparation for our train trip up the coast to our second stop, a place called Allepey that afternoon. After a day of suffering and dreaming of lying on our couch at home, ordering from Franks pizza and watching tons of bad T.V. (our traditional hangover cure) we headed to the train station where we learned that in India the Deiters are kinda celebrities. I know this because after we plopped down on our bags (still mostly hating life) I turned around to find an Indian woman and her son standing right behind us. I looked at the kid who was doing the hide behind mom's legs thing and then at the other 20 family members staring from a bench a few feet back then back to mom who said "he wants to shake your hand". I laughed out loud and stuck my hand out which really spooked the little guy who was still trying to work out what the hell this pale skinned Adonis he saw before him really was. He tried to bail but was shot down after some Hindi from his mom which translates as "oh no no no, you made me come over and disturb this handsome man, now you're gonna shake his hand." So shook we did and after he realized that he didn't loose any fingers or turn to dust we worked our way through a series of increasingly intricate high 5's to the delight of the surrounding family. The train came and dropped us in Allepey after 3 or so hours where a guy from our guest house scooped us up and took us to our new home right on the beach. The place is run by "Babu" or rather two friends who both answer to Babu cause it's "easier for white people to remember". The place is great for hanging out and making friends but both babu's are early 20ish guys and the place looks like its run by two early 20ish guys. Tash was a little shaken up when we were greeted by a giant rat who scurried out a hole in the wall when we opened the door to our room. Having once been a 20ish guy myself I plugged the hole in the wall with an empty plastic water bottle and...boom problem solved. Tash was not so sure and had a why are we in India look on her face that only resolved after a few rat free hours. Allepey is home to the "backwaters" where you can rent your own houseboat and cruise around something like 900 kilometers of interconnected lakes and rivers. The night of our arrival we arranged for a boat the next morning and then settled in for some Tandori chicken and hangin out on an elevated bamboo hut above the beach at the hostel. This hut proved to be the star of the show at the hostel and I guess because the rooms are less luxurious than business class, people spend most of their time up there watching out for rats and making friends. We met a group of Israeli's who lived on Kibbutz's back home and treated us to an impromptu jam session with a guitar and a nose flute (yeah, you read that right) as well as a cool group of regular Indian guys who were friends with the "babu's." The next day was a trip on our very own "houseboat." For the second time on the trip (and ever) we had our very own staff and we were pleased with our boat which we booked sight unseen and was a very nice bamboo number with a private perch up top as well as a bedroom with a comfy bed and A.C. (it was one of the nicer rooms we have stayed in). As we set off in the morning we were a little put off by the number of houseboats and were concerned that it might turn into a houseboat traffic jam rather than a romantic river cruise. There were like two hundred of them and in a few years this activity may jump the shark but after we pulled out of the "parking lot" we found the slow jog up the river to be quite relaxing from our perch above the wheelhouse (Deiters are nautical now). After cruising around a bit we pulled up next to a rice field to have lunch before setting out on a slow stroll to our evening destination just off a large lake. It was pretty sweet to hang out and chat while watching life go by on the river. The waterways are like roads and the shores are covered with houses, schools, churches, bars and everything else you might find driving around a town in India. Things were going swimmingly until we posted up for the evening and got sorta pressured into buying some "tiger prawns" which are apparently a delicacy in Saudi Arabia? (our boatman was emphatic about this point) and were pretty expensive considering they were not our favorites and we had already paid for dinner as part of the package. So Ok, we agree to get one tiger prawn each which doesn't impress the boatman or his cousin (the prawn salesman). Then things went to the next level when dinner was served and our boatman asked if he "could share our alcohol" (queue sideways glances from the Deiters / he meant the gin we brought for late night boat drinks) . Hmmmm, ok so that's weird but sure, and I offer to go upstairs and get it after we're done eating but there was no need for that apparently as he bounded up the ladder and retrieved the bottle. Then we pour the boatman and the captain a drink after an awkward moment where we had to convince him that the free gin we were offering was in fact alcohol. Boatman wasn't sure and eyed the glass wearily before slugging down a G&T like it was a shot and launching into a story about how its a "big problem" on the other boats because the crews drink all the time but on his boat we were getting good service because "we don't drink till night time" ( That's reassuring right?) At this point the captain/driver was an older fellow who didn't speak English but was fluent in how weird things had gotten and escorted his boatman buddy to the back of the boat so we could resume/start our romantic dinner. Things were fine for a while and we thought ok that was weird but harmless and this is India and blah blah blah until I go to the bathroom and my man is back with an empty glass looking for a refill. After being reassured that this was the last time and not knowing what else to do Tash topped him off and he does the down the hatch move again and then spins around and almost throws up off the side of the boat (ya know, cause you're not supposed to drink straight gin a half a glass at a time). Thankfully this was last call for our boatman but this weirdness put a damper on what would, and should have been a really romantic and special evening (bummer). Having been in India for a while now (as I type) I would have just said no and that would have been it, but we were new, and maybe its a custom, and we don't want to be rude and so on. The next morning was breakfast on the lake and then a slow cruise back to the dock before heading back to our hostel. We spent the day hanging out with other travelers up on the perch, trading stories and watching locals play some fierce volley ball on the beach at sunset. Before long we were headed off for our first night train to a beautiful beach called Gokarna.....where we would be extorted by the police...and I would administer my first rabies vaccine to a puppy...stay tuned.