Scooters and Ferries

Safety first

My beloved Fabindia

 

 

It is crazy noisy here this morning. It starts with the Muslim call to prayer at dawn- I usually hear it but can drift back to sleep. It is very soothing. But this morning there was also what I think must be a dog in heat wailing which is upsetting the birds who are squawking and then all of the regular India noises- car horns, bicycle bells etc. So I'm up early!!!
We had quite the adventure yesterday on a scooter. We decided to check out a beach about 25km north of here to see if we'd like to stay for a couple of days. There's a bus that goes up there every 15 minutes or so but Mike just can't pass up the opportunity to rent a scooter. For Rs300 (about 5 bucks) you can get a brand new scooter for 24 hours plus two ill fitting helmets.
A thing about scooters here in India- it's a very common form of travel. You'll see all manner of people riding them. School girls and boys, whole families. When a family rides it is usually with the Dad driving and Mom sitting side saddle sometimes with a baby in her arms or an older child standing in between Dad's legs. I've seen as many as 5 people on one scooter. As far as I can tell there aren't many rules for driving except stay out of the way of the buses which are the largest, most in charge and will run you down with out blinking. All vehicles drive on the left side of the road here- for the most part- and honking your horn is very necessary when passing to let whatever vehicle or creature know you're overtaking them. Mike is very safe. I sit behind him like a little mosquito- nagging him to use his horn, watch out for things, yelping in fear every once in a while. And he ignores me...
This area is a series of islands so we had to take a passenger ferry to get here to Fort Cochin. The beach place is on Vypin Island north of here. We got our scooter, stopped and got some petrol and got in line to board the ferry. A huge mass of people, scooters, motorcycles, bicycles, autorickshaws, trucks and cars straining to get on this barge. The price for two people and one scooter- Rs7- 11 cents.
I'm really nervous when it comes to both scooters/motorcycles and ferries. I'm not a huge fan of ferries anywhere and I don't see a lot of safety gear- Oh well. We squeeze onto the ferry and the second it makes contact with the jetty on the other side (before even tying up) the mass of people, vehicles etc. spills out on the street.
From here we head north. We've seen on Google Maps that there is a road that parallels the beach about halfway up the island. We figure that this will be quieter than the main road so we cut over. We reach the sea and our beach road peters out into a path. We stop and ask and the locals say "yes, yes beach road..." and point north. So we continue on. Soon we are in a cow pasture and every 100m or so I have to get off and walk while Mike pushes the scooter through the sand. This goes on for a few kilometers. Clearly this isn't right. Somehow Google Maps didn't get the memo that the beach road isn't a road. We finally find a way to cut back to the main highway and eventually end up at Cherai Beach. Later we repeated the whole process in the other direction without the stop in the cow pasture. 50+km on a scooter is a long way...
But the beach and little town are really nice. Quiet, clean. We've decided to head up tomorrow and spend a couple days at a nice little guesthouse we found. We'll take the bus. From there we'll plan what we'll do until February 17 which is when we'll fly to Delhi. Then on to Bangkok on the 25th.
About Fabindia. It was my favorite store when I was in India last time. Nice boutique with beautiful scarfs etc. with outlets in a bunch of different cities. After the harrowing scooter trip I insisted on going to the clean, orderly, AC store and buying a few items to accessorize my meager wardrobe. Mike was cranky but I deserve it.