Around the World in 80 Dinners - Bill Jamison [80]
The curry is just as tasty, Cheryl insists. “The coconut flavor is subtly complex and it’s fiery in an earthier way than Thai curries.” The naan served with the fish flaunts the brawny chewiness of a proper pizza crust and comes with melted garlic butter, a combo good enough for a full meal in itself.
Under a dark night sky, the streets are deserted, except for a few wandering cows and goats, when we return to our hotel. Along the way, the taxi passes a sprawling residence sporting a sign saying Tourist Home. “What would that be?” Cheryl asks.
“Maybe,” Bill says, “it’s where old tourists like us move when we’re too stuffed to get around on our own any longer. Should we ask the driver to stop?”
The clear skies in the morning bode well for our most anticipated day in India, when we’ll be spending much of our waking and all of our sleeping hours on a houseboat on Vembanad Lake. A driver is scheduled to pick us up after a leisurely hotel breakfast, which starts again with juice and fruit, followed today by a dosa and idly. Both local specialties rely on the same batter, traditionally made from a mixture of lentils, rice, and water allowed to ferment overnight. Cooked much like a pancake, the dosa comes off a big griddle thin and circular, whereas an idly is steamed in a mold to form domed patties of a few inches in diameter. Our waiter, Viju, brings us sambar and coconut chutney to eat with each, and asks, “What kind of Indian food do you find in the United States?”
“Almost all of it,” Bill answers, “is northern Indian.”
“Do you think Americans would like idly?”
“I definitely like it,” Cheryl says.
“Maybe I will move to the United States and open idly restaurants, so I can get rich.”
On the drive from Kochi, traffic thins out once our car clears the city limits, but even on the divided highway, a few tuk-tuks and motorbikes risk traveling for reasons of their own on the wrong side of the road. Lots of the people we pass are making coir, and others haul the finished product to markets stacked high on carts powered by three-wheel rickshaws. Elephants work in construction projects along the route; in one case, an elephant is clearing huge loads of palm fronds from a site. The long leaves stick out both sides of his trunk, making him look like a big grounded butterfly. Eventually, the driver turns off the highway onto a potholed dirt track that rambles three miles through thick vegetation to a clearing on the lakefront signposted Spice Coast Cruises, our CGH Earth home for the next twenty-four hours.
Vembanad Lake rests at the heart of the Kerala backwaters, a system of rivers, lagoons, lakes, and canals that covers much of the state. Vembanad alone extends sixty-five miles in length and broadens up to five miles wide at points. Of the thirty-eight rivers in the entire network, four major ones feed the lake and other smaller tributaries also connect into it. From the shores, you can navigate a thousand miles of natural and man-made canals. Villages and secluded farmhouses line the waterways, which have provided economical transportation for people and goods for centuries. An ancient lifestyle thrives along the banks, changed little by the recent arrival of scattered hotels and the conversion of old rice barges, or Kettuvalloms, into houseboats for visitors.
The receptionist leads us into a small office to register and pay the basic part of the bill. “If you want prawns, wine, or beer with your dinner,” he says, “there is a supplemental charge the captain collects at the end of the voyage.” He escorts us down a jungle path to the lake, where our boat