Into the Backwaters for Sure

Into the Backwaters for Sure

When I awoke the morning after the strike, I looked down on the street and could find no more evidence of a protest that the exact site of a sand castle which stood previous to the last high tide. People moved in crowds; vehicle horns chattered back in forth, each, like there operator, more adapt at talking than listening.

As expected, the jeans were still wet so after a drenching with one-temperature-will-serve-all tap water shower, I pulled on my best dress pants with yellow stitching and found breakfast and directions to the government tourist ticket center.

In a number of countries in Asia, especially the ones where it rains and rains, they dig a ditch and line it with concrete to take away the excessive rainwater. Since flow depends on slope, I’ve always wanted to talk this design over with an engineer. In the final result does the depth of the slit carry more water than a gutter with a better slope? The cut is no more than a foot wide and of a depth of over a foot. In Singapore the depth could be more than six feet. Some places cover their gutters; Singapore doesn’t or didn’t. The gutter covers, when you find them, are rectangles of concrete, of course, wider than the gutter, about two and a half feet long and five or six inches thick. This makes them heavy enough so that it takes a concerted effort to move one. There is a keyhole molded through the slab, which serves more than one purpose, I suspect. One, a line with a toggle could be slipped through the hole, the toggle turned crosswise to the keyhole, the other end of the rope could be centered on the middle of a pole, and four men, two on each end of the pole, could lift and set the cover in place over the gutter. Now the slab serves as both a cover for the slit, a filter to keep larger rubbish out of the gutter, and the public can use the slabs as a fairly smooth sidewalk, albeit a narrow one.

As I hurried on, I walked the slabs until I came to one that was missing and then I took a long step over the hole. Before traveling to Asia be sure and get a tetanus shot and a Mini-Mag flashlight. You may wonder as to the present location of the missing slab (or if there ever was one) as you ask directions to the ticket office. And if you again visit the city years from now, remember, a tetanus shot and a Mini-Mag flashlight. The missing link in the walkway may still be missing.

The agent explained as he sold tickets that the beginning point was a cab drive away and that the price of the cab was covered in the ticket. A retired colonel was there with his wife, son, who was a lieutenant colonel, his daughter-in-law, there six-year old son. While the tickets and the money were being sorted, the two colonels studied the wall map talking over routes to be taken in the days to come. They were from the north and had rented a car to make a thorough site-seeing trip of it.

We boarded cabs and began the hour-long journey. There are two generalities I want to make and as you know generalities are not to be trusted. Nobody in India can make change in rupees and no taxi ever has a full tank. We stopped while about half-way to our destination long enough for a purchase of about four liters of gas and for me to launch one prayer from the backseat. It was during this outing that it occurred to me that there is a world supply of mercenary jet pilots among India’s cab drivers just waiting for further training. All they have to learn is how to make a plane go up and go down. With tongue out of cheek, these driver exhibit nerve and coordination that is well beyond that of normal humans. Of course all Indians have the nerve. They exhibit it every time they climb into a cab or onto a bus. But it is the drivers that have the lightning reflexes. And just to give further proof of their ability, they may carry on a conversation with a passenger, listen to Top Forty Mumbai at full volume, and answer a cell phone simultaneously. You remember at times like this that it’s tea, coffee, and beetle nut which is preferred over drinking alcohol. Like the survival of street dogs, in India the institution of road driving is Darwinian. So there I was in the backseat wondering if today is the day I find out who is the fittest to survive. As of late there is a move afoot by the government to train all commercial drivers. How can you argue with statistics? Five died along with two busses in a head-on. I just read the headlines so I don’t know the number hospitalized.

Because we stopped we were late. The others gathered beneath a palm thatched shelter waiting. My appearance upon stepping from the cab was enough to get them laughing and soon there was another hold up and we had time to visit and settle in with each other.

A little old man (probably my age) seemed to be in charge. His English was pretty good but it was Indian English. In my mind I had to pronounce what he said a second time to bring the words into American English. He was dressed like a villager but as you listened to him you knew he had been places and done things. I was to find that he was very knowledgeable and as you will see when dealing with people, carried around five pounds of patience.

He told us that we would see three villages and connecting waterways. We had arrived in the first village and he took us to see the horticulture, literally the things grown in the yard. Bananas and cocoanuts were not surprising but then he showed us black pepper, and a half-dozen other spices, along with coffee, cocoa, sugarcane, and tea. The yards seem to be the owners’ at-home supermarkets. Most of the spices he showed us, I had never heard of. The Phoenicians didn’t sail to this coast for the beaches.

Then we boarded a six-foot wide canoe of about thirty-five feet in length. To get an idea of the space, set two plastic lawn chairs side by side because that’s what we sat in. And before you restack them, check the name of the country of origin molded into the plastic. India is its own best customer. The colonel and I sat with each other, the grandson sat forward with the guide and a fellow who knew so much about what was around us that I was surprised that he came on the tour. I would have foregone the cab ride had I been him. He sat back of me. (And in case you have decided that my take on cab driving is exaggerated, I forgot to tell you that we hit something or somebody on the way out. It, he, or she knocked the outside rearview mirror out of position. I did hear a scream but I think it was mine.) The other family members were scattered along the length of the canoe. Then we shoved off, a man in the bow, and a man in the stern both poling. We moved silently except for the voices of the guide, the kid, and the fellow behind me.

The old man pointed out a water snake winding his way across the canal beneath a wild pineapple. The colonel said the snake was poisonous, the fellow behind me said it wasn’t, the kid talked Hindi to the guide, and the guide said nothing. You don’t eat wild pineapple FYI. It may have to be cultured for several generations before becoming nutritious. Regardless of the character of the water snake, false mangos are poisonous. And down the waterways we glided, doing nothing except listening and watching is a most pleasant way to spend a half-day.

A kingfisher perched on a limb up ahead. Everybody got quiet, even the kid and the man behind me. All wild animals have a danger range - the distance that they will allow you to approach them. Sometime they don’t know that you are there. If it is a kingfisher, you may see a wild flight. If it is a tiger or bear you may see a wild fight…in your lap. The kingfisher saw us coming and allowed us to get within about thirty-five paces and then flew straight down the waterway since there was less vegetation in that direction. Everybody including the kid, the authority, and me said, “Oooh!” at once. The kingfisher flew beneath leafed tree limbs that stopped all sunlight except for a few dapples here and there. Each time the daylight fell on the bird’s back, it fluoresced blue. Once you’ve seen the flash, you don’t get this bird mixed up with any other. He is about the same size as the kingfishers I saw around Sitka. A bottling company in Goa calls itself Kingfisher. When I saw their logo, I thought the company needed the advice of an ornithologist. How would anybody get a kingfisher mixed up with a ruby-throated humming bird? But while the artist may have exaggerated some, the bird is always worth stopping what you are doing to look at.

We poled past a rice paddy, then a stand of rubber trees, and then some bamboo. Everything in sight was lush and tropical – elephant ears, morning glory vines, hibiscus, and all this time we pushed our way through water hyacinths. I asked the guide about the latter, knowing that with a growth rate such as theirs, they can block a waterway quickly. The old guide said that once a year, the government enlists the people into a program to clear the waterway.

On the water or in visiting the villages that day, I noticed another program ongoing. Somebody told somebody that you don’t toss your rubbish the way they do it in town. I did see a small amount to garbage floating in the water, but really the water and landscape were clean. Since visitors drop in almost daily into these people’s midst, I’m sure there must be some financial benefits paid out by the government, possibly an improvement in the school or infirmary. If the local farming families paid any attention to us, it was generally positive. In one village they demonstrated rope making using corded coconut husks for fiber. I was tempted to buy a length but since it goes in the pack and the pack goes on my back, I passed.

At another hamlet, the ladies wove coconut palms into smartly executed mats. The lieutenant colonel bought two or three. He lives somewhere this side of Alaska and won’t need to stow them in the overhead compartment. While the weaving and the buying were going on, I walked off to investigate a whacking noise beyond a hedge of wild plants, which sounded like someone splitting firewood. Through the bushes, I first saw the little girl, probably about five years old. She flashed a smile and then I saw the mother who wheeled a hapless shirt overhead before smacking it hard against a rough rock. She smiled as well and said, “I washing!” I waved and kept the little girl’s attention by making a silver rupee disappear in my palm. The little girl knew that that couldn’t happen and her mother explained that I was doing magic. “Whack!” Mama never missed a beat.

Back in the boat we pushed on. The fellow behind me informed his group as to this or that. Not being able to understand a language is a great disadvantage except when you don’t want to listen. The kid forward questioned the guide, who while looking over the waterway and land around us, answered but with his attention elsewhere. The grandfather chuckled and I asked him why. He said that the boy was asking how many children the guide had and how long he had been a guide. I asked the grandfather if the boy intended offering the old man a job. Grand Dad thought that that was worth passing on in Hindi and he got a laugh. The questions and conversation had split early on. The adults wanted to know about the plants, animals, and the way of life while the boy wanted to know where the guide shopped for his sandals.

The water sent out concentric waves from the bank. I asked what had caused that and the colonel said that an iguana had dived beneath the water. I looked for hibiscus plants but couldn’t see any at the moment. These pocket-sized dinosaurs include in their diet hibiscus blossoms.

Trekking may be exhilarating, but sitting quietly in a canoe while it is being poled silently through the still water has something to be said for it. I had put the taxi ride home out of my mind and as the canoe slid beneath the overhanging branches and the sunlight dappled the waterway ahead of us, I relaxed. And that’s not such a bad thing to do now and then.

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