February 4, 2014, Kollum, India

Yesterday, Jim and I took a five hour ferry from Alleppy down the inland waterway. It was a lovely trip.

More of the Chinese fishing nets: this time not on the shore but right in the channel.

Lots of fishing boats

and again, my favourite, the people.

I was quite excited to be going to stay at the Amrithanandamayi mission, Jim was skeptical. The ashram is enormous, more than two thousand people live there plus all the visitors. It's a huge pink edifice wedged between the inland water way and the Indian Ocean. The  site is spectacular. After checking in and getting our sheets, we made our way down to the ocean. Ama was leading some meditation. For the next hour, many people in plastic lawn chairs sat and breathed. 

Unfortunately, both Jim and I were appalled with the entire cult mentality. After the meditation, there was another service for two hours in a huge hall.  This was all songs in Hindi praising "AMA" the mother god. Ama was at this service too. By the time it ended, we were too disgruntled, and tired to eat so we were back to our bare room and drank rum and coke.  Absolutely against the rules, as is 

handholding, fratranizing with the villagers, taking photos and on and on and on.

Anyways, this morning before breakfast, we went and sat on the beach. I did two sketches and wrote this:

A flat cerulean sky

Meets the Indian Ocean

Far on the horizon.

The water is pale and calm

Until it reaches the rolling 

Beige and mauve sand.

Then the wave deepens 

To a dark blue green

And swells until it 

Can rise no more.

It collapses with

A booming, thunderous spray.

The white froth spills up the beech

And then recedes

Just before the next wave crests.

After a plate of rice, I returned to the beach where I sat and painted for four hours. it was glorious!

Then we checked out of the cult- freedom felt wonderful and we caught a tuk tuk to Kollan.

By the time we arrived, I was starving, no lunch or supper yesterday and some rice this morning and no lunch.  I was also totally scared to death because of the many near misses in the tuk tuk.  

As soon as we found a place to stay ( too expensive, but we were desperate) we got another tuk tuk to go to a hotel where they served beer and food. Jim and I ended up in the lounge called the glazier-- everything was stark white, walls, tables, chairs everything and of course the entire place was empty! It certainly seemed surreal.  Until this spot, I thought that vegetarian food was easy to get in India. Not at the glazier, Jim enjoyed spicey beef and beer and I settled for french fries! And so ends another day in India.