What a small world... again :)

This happens often and is the second time that it has happened to me in another country from the UK and it always blows my mind! So, have just finished watching this amazing Keralan theatre performance of Kathakali (will tell ya bout it in a bit - twas ace) and a guy sitting behind me calls my name, it's only the guy who's job I took over from that homeless charity I was working for in London!! Mental! He's on a 2 wk holiday with his gf - fancy that, in India, whilst we both moving around. It's a small friggin world. We didn't hang around too long, I mean, our mutual manager, (who he was well pally with) was the one who fkin sacked me the bastard :).

Anypoos, my next topic - Buses. Long journey local buses. Particularly the one I took from Alleppey to Munnar - the most uncomfortable and loud experience ever!! I was on the darned thing at 4am and whilst I would have liked to have got some sleep, I was catapaulted into the air loadsa times from the craters in the road and once we started the second leg of the journey (total 6hrs), the bus conductor told me to sit at the front (presumably because I was female and the only one on the damned thing) and I got to listen to the excrutiatingly loud blow of the fog horn on the thing every 2 mins! SO loud! And SO frequent. We got there in one piece tho, just - twas hair raising at points, but I have learnt to trust these bus drivers, they are skilled skilled men. I deffo wouldn't be able to take the blind corners, going up and down winding mountains at speed with a full, rickety old bus and single lanes at time! Mental.

Oh, and another point I forgot to mention that's come up quite a bit - every Indian I've met wants to know your salary. So I've found out a couple myself, eg. this train driver dude from my train to Kerala earns 20000R/month.

Btw, at the mo am in Fort Cochin - it's pretty nice, quaint (quite a lot of Dutch/Catholic influence) - lots of old buildings that are falling down all about the place, had a good wander round this morning in Jew Town and bought myself a few bits of contemporary Keralan art - has been my splurge wkend this :). Will check out the Synagogue tomorrow, one of my family friends has recommended to go and I have to/want to for him...

Yeah, so just come back from this traditional performance - Kathakali - Immense.

The beginning of it starts with the application of make up, which is pretty cool, a proper art form - but also a bit odd as it's a white tourist audience watching them in silence and loads of oldies around too, was sitting next to 2 American oldies and I became distracted at points by their crooked toes poking outta their sandals and their persistent nattering... Bitchy, me!? No ;P.... Yes :)

The face paint is made out of coloured stones that they mix with coconut oil whilst on stage - really vibran colours of red, yellow, green and black. The whites of their eyes they make red, by inserting this seed from a special flower just before they start - mental - and they also make their pupils proper black. The stories they tell are all from the Marhabrataha (think that's the spelling) so it's all about deities etc, so proper adds to the whole ambience of the thing.

It's all done through mime in the form of fast eye, face and body movements, with sign language for expression of mood, person, place etc. Fucking mental - the skill is unreal. Have never seen eyes move with such precision and... basically, have never seen eyes move like that before. I highly recommend going to see a Kathakali performance, regardless of how touristy it is, it's SO worth it!