Well, nothing further bit or stung me in the night, so I was happy. I could hear a morning chorus of birds, especially the peacocks calling to each other at dawn. At 7 my coffee was delivered to the room and I had delicious morning coffee overlooking the pool and the field. While drinking it I got to hear the daily temple ceremony.
Some other random thoughts and mixed feelings about this view while I was having morning coffee. I was going to take a bath last night in the beautiful soaking tub until I turned on the water which smelled like sulfur and looked a bit yellow in color. I started thinking here is a place in terrible water shortage and the owner of this hotel/palace has pools filled with water for no real good reason. It must be a)very expensive to do and b) a waste taking scarce water from the people who need it. Later I asked where the water comes from and was told all the traditional places are dried up (Jawai, local sources, Jodpur), so now they buy it from locals who have water collection areas. What was a beautiful private pool yesterday was a foot lower in water this morning, yellowish and with bird refuse in it - I gave the morning swim a miss. I did, however have a beautiful view of so many peacocks who flew, walked and posed for me. Yesterday a lady peacock came to have a drink at my pool, along with a bevy of sparrows. So my morning coffee view was watching the peacocks and enjoying the coolness while it lasted.
At 7:30 I went on a tour of the stables. at the entrance was hanging chilies and lime to keep out the evil spirits. The horses were very pretty and very expensive. One was pregnant and not very nice.
Breakfast was poolside the big infinity pool at the central lounge where flocks of pigeons would occasionally fly by. I had a local breakfast, but can’t remember the name, other than local gram flour pancakes. Managed to lose concentration and poured coffee in my water:(
I had a bit of time before checkout and double checked all the covid info, since it had been awhile. Had quite a scare when I thought it had changed. Went through a lot of work on my mobile phone to do the Kerela visit permit in the car on the way to the airport to try to get the declaration done and accepted. I was finally successful. The challenging bits were a) trying to type while the car was moving through bad traffic, b)trying to upload a photo of my return ticket and reducing it to under 1MB (thank heaven for google), c)figuring out what district my hotel was in - had to call the travel agent as this was something not included in the address, but my favorite was d) the question about how many people I will be interacting with - I mean, really. I got to the airport with 2 hours to spare because I figured I would have covid issues at check in and NO ONE CARED/S. I didn’t need to fill in anything because no one gave a sh*t.
Today I flew from Jaipur in Rajasthan(red star) to Cochin. Indigo boards planes starting with the middle rows, which I love as long as there’s luggage space when I get on. I had a connection in Chennai - both flights left in time and got in early. This was good because I had to go through security again in Chennai and only had an hour layover.
Most interesting was that mask wearing was brutally enforced on the forst
leg and not enforced at all in the second leg- Chennai to Cochin. Many people didn’t wear a mask at all- like Florida:). I wish the guy sitting across the aisle wore one because he was coughing and hacking.
Well, my greeter wasn’t at the exit with a sign, so I ended up having to call him. Evidently he didn’t believe in monitoring the flight progress. In addition it seems that I chose the wrong Marriott when I made the reservation- I should have chosen the Courtyard at the airport. Why would I want to spend my free time at the airport because it’s more convenient for them. They said it would take 2 hours to get to the hotel, but 40 minutes later we were there. I’m not changing to the airport when I come back in a few days.
The car is the same model as Manoj had but had this huge phallus attached as a hood ornament which is a bit embarrassing, but at least I can always find the car. (Picture to come) Then we had a seat belt issue in car- eg I couldn’t find it. The greeter said- oh it’s no problem, the police only check the front seat. Well it was a problem for me and I forced the issue. Lucky thing I did when we had a near accident on the way.
the Marriott was very nice- upgraded to the club floor and I was glued to American TV and movies which I hadn’t seen for 2 whole weeks. Dinner was a really good chicken curry with fluffy bread/pancakes
Comments