帰国報告
その1 India! India!
その2 Kochi Day 1
その3 Kochi Day 2
その4 Kochi Day 3
その5 Kochi Day 4
コーチンでのラストデイ。
この日は早起きして屋台へ。
インドに来たからには絶対にやりたかったことの一つ。
もちろん目指すはホテルシティライト。
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| Hotel City Light = a cheap eating place |
あつあつのチャイと揚げ物を注文。
普段私はまったく揚げ物に興味がないのですが、インドに来てからというもの毎日肉か揚げ物を口にしています。それが意外と気持ち悪くならないのが不思議です。
さて早朝からバナナパコラ（べサン粉を衣に使ったバナナの天ぷら）、サーターアンダギーのようなドーナツ、何かわからないもの。
チャイは２杯も飲んでしまいました。
油で指をべっとべとにしながら、出来立てのバナナパコラにサクサクとパクついては、熱くて濃くて甘いチャイを、ふーふーと吹きながら喉に流し込む。う～～ん。まんぞくまんぞく。余はまんぞくじゃ。
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| chai |
そうしたら、偶然ホテルシティライトの店先でおじさんが大量のパラタを仕込み中のところに遭遇したのです。Acoは早速ビデオを回し、私たちも食い入るように見つめ、写真を撮らせてもらいました。
薄く伸ばした生地をカットして、ぐるぐる～っと巻きながら丸くまとめ、それを平たくつぶして円形に焼くという工程なのですが、とにかく量が多いので圧巻！整然と並ぶ生地たちの美しさに感動。
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| paratha dough |
すっかりいい気分でB&Bへ歩いて行ったら、ホストファザーと遭遇。バイクなんて乗っちゃってかっこいい。
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| Afzal on his motorcyle |
さてジェズナママの朝のお料理教室はアーッパムと卵入りポテトカレー。
もうすでにお腹は満たされていたのだけれど、ここは修行。『まだ食べるのか、私たち…。』という思いをひそやかに呑み込んで、せっせとお料理。
アーッパムは生米やウラドダル、ココナツミルクなどで生地を作って焼きます。こちらはケララではおなじみの料理。
卵入りポテトカレーはやさしい味。
さすがにあまり食べられませんでしたが、美味しくできました。
朝食後は、再びバスでルルモールへ。
この日は最後の買い付けです。とにかく買って買って買いまくる。ハイパーマートと呼ばれる大型スーパーにて食材を買いつけました。
私も結構いろいろと買いましたが、2人の魔女の買い付けぶりと言ったら豪快の一言に尽きました。一体どうやって持って帰るの？と何度も心配している私に構わず、がんがん買う。
気持ちよかったです。
この日はショッピングモール内のフードコートでお昼を食べました。
ずっと食べてみたかったダヒプリ！サモサチャート、ダルカレーにマンゴーラッシ。
私にとっては、フードコートでこんなに美味しいものが食べられるなら日本にも是非進出してほしいのですが…。
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| from the top clockwise, mango lassi, dahipuri, dal curry, and samosa chaat. |
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| dahipuri |
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| samosa chaat |
さて、帰りはもちろんタクシーでと思っていたら、なんとここにきて再びの大雨、嵐、雷。そして停電！！
モールが一気に真っ暗になり、私たちの不安が高鳴りました。
ああ、明日の早朝にはデリーへ移動しなくては行けないのに…、まだ荷造りはこれからなのに…、B&Bへ帰るのはいったい何時になるのだろう？洗濯を干してきたけど、びしょ濡れになっているだろうな、そしたら荷造りもまた厄介だぞ。この荷物の量から絶対に鮨詰めのバスには乗れないし、タクシーはすぐにつかまるのだろうか？様々な不安が頭をよぎります。
そして、モールの外へ出てみたら、なんとタクシー乗り場は無い！
ホワイ!? なぜだあぁぁぁぁぁ!!??? こんなに巨大なモールなのに？ありえない！
大雨で煙る街。携帯電話も無い。タクシー会社の番号もわからない。
次々にロータリーに入ってくるのはドロップオフの自家用車やリキシャ。リキシャをつかまえたところで、B&Bのあるコーチンまでは遠すぎて行ってくれません。なんとかミニキャブを捕まえたいところでした。必死に入ってくる乗り物を見つけては、我先に突進していくインド人たちに混じって声を掛けます。『コーチンに行って！』だと断られる可能性が高いので、とりあえず大きな通りの名前を言って乗り込みました。騙して申し訳ないけど、乗ってしまってからは何とかなると、3人の魔女は頑張りました。『実はコーチンへ行ってほしいんだけど？』と頼んでみます。ところがドライバーのお兄さん、英語があまり通じない。わかったかわかってないのか、不安でした。
コーチンからルルモールへの大通りは大規模な地下鉄工事のために車線の制限があり行きも帰りも大渋滞。おまけにこの嵐です。一ミリ単位でしか進んでいないような渋滞を、ビニールの窓一枚で雨を避けた狭い車内でじっと耐えます。なんとかかんとか、コーチンの町へ続く橋を渡ったときは、かなり希望の光がさしました。そこからは、街灯も無い真っ暗な道を、屋台の灯りなんかを頼りに見覚えのある通りをさがして目を凝らします。何しろ番地が無いのです。
奇跡的にと言っていいほど無事にB&Bにたどり着き、大量の買い物袋をおろします。
私たちの帰りが遅いのでホストが2人して心配して待っていてくれました。もう夜の10時近くで、約束していた夕食のお料理教室の時間にも間に合わずでした。この日はパラタを習いたいと言っていたので、ホストファザーのお母さんがわざわざ来て用意して待っていてくれたのに、遅くなったのでパラタを作って帰ったのだとか。申し訳なかったし、本当に残念でした。その上ホストマザーのジェズナは体調が良くなく、辛そうでした。
タクシー代は、なんと最初に交渉した値段でした。英語が通じなくて不安だった上、大雨と渋滞の中、遠い距離を乗せてもらったのにありがたかったです。
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| beef curry |
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| fried beef |
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| paratha |
ぐったり疲労ののしかかる体を抱えて、とにかく今夜中にやることを整理しました。
すっかり冷めてしまったパラタとビーフカレー、牛肉の炒め物を食べながら、とっても美味しいのにあまりうまく笑顔が作れないのがつらかったです。
ホストファザーに頼んでおいた、翌早朝のタクシーの手配をもう一度確認。デリーに着いてから、どう動くか。荷物を預ける場所、シャワーを浴びる場所。何件か申し込んでいた料理教室は、軒並みキャンセルや返事なし、などうまく予約が取れないので予定を変更して、町を見て回ることに。そして荷造り。これは今夜中です。
アフザルに段ボールが欲しいと事前に頼んでいたのですが、アフザルに色々なことを頼み過ぎたようで、彼はすっかり忘れていました。それでも、かき集めてきてくれました。本当にやさしい人です。
洗濯物は、、びしょ濡れの上、ロープから落ちて汚れていました。せめて脱水機に掛けて欲しいと頼んだら調子が悪かったようで、木の屑やら砂やらがくっついた状態で帰ってきました。それでも夜中近くにこんなにいろいろと手伝ってくれたホストに感謝。
体調の悪いジェズナも最後のお別れを言いに来てくれました。
結局荷造りが終わって横になれたのは夜中12時頃でした。
そして起床は早朝2時。たったの2時間の仮眠でしたが、これが無かったらふらふらだったことでしょう。
3時にタクシーが迎えにきました。
ホスト達は眠っていますから、できるだけ静かに荷物を運び込んで乗り込みました。
タクシーはひんやりと空調が効いていて、静かで快適でした。
すぐにまた眠気が襲ってきたので、空港までうとうとと、まだチャイ屋もまばらにしか空いていない早朝のコーチンにお別れをしました。
つづく。
Spice Witch Training in India Part 6
Coming home
Part1 India! India!
Part2 Kochi Day 1
Part5 Kochi Day 4
Our last day in Kochi.
We woke up early to get some breakfast on the street.
One of the things we'd been wanted to do in India.
Of course we were heading to the Hotel City Light.
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| When I asked him to take his photo, he gave me the kindest smile. |
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| This old lady was co cool. |
We ordered hot chai and some deep fried snacks.
I normally don't feel like eating deep fried food at all, but since the first day I arrived in India, I'd been eating either meat or deep fried food everyday. To my surprise, that didn't made me feel sick or anything.
So we had banana pakora, ball shaped donuts, and something I forgot the name of.
I ended up ordering second glass of hot chai.
My right hand fingers were covered in grease. I took a bite of crispy banana pakora and washed it down with hot and strong and sweet chai which I needed to blow each time to cool it down. Aaaaaaahhhh! Was I feeling satisfied.
Since we had arrived in India, we'd been saying what we wanted to do as a proper word. So magically everything we said came true one by one. It was quite astonishing. One of the things we wanted to do was to see paratha making.
Then, at the Hotel City Light, there was a guy, making loads of paratha... Aco filmed him and Ayami and I stared at his work and took pictures.
It was a simple process. Spread the dough thinly and cut it into few pieces and roll it into a ball. Press it with palm to make it into a round shape and bake it. However, there was a huge amount of paratha to make, so it was a thrilling sight to see. We all moved by the neatly lined up paratha dough.
We were all feeling great after that. Of our way back to our B&B, we bumped into our host father. He was riding on his motorcycle and looked quite cool.
Our mom Jezna's cooking lesson for breakfast was aappam and potato curry with eggs.
Our stomach had already been filled, but this class was our study. We quietly swallowed down our laughter for ourselves who were still going to eat more and cooked and cooked.
To make aappam, fry a scoop of dough made with raw rice, ulad dal, and coconut milk. This was is one of traditional dish in Kerala.
Potato curry with eggs had gentle taste.
We couldn't eat a lot, but we cooked fine.
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| aappam and potato curry with egg |
After breakfast, we went to Lulu mall by bus.
This day was our last big buying day. We bought and bough and bought until we got everything. We went to a hyper mart to buy foodstuff.
I bought quite many things, but two other witches wasn't even buying, they were going on a buying binge. A dynamic shopping style, I'd say. I kept asking them how were they going to bring everything back to Japan, but they never seemed to worry about such thing and kept buying more.
It was very satisfying to look at their shopping.
We ate lunch at the mall.
I had been waiting to eat dahipuri! We also ordered samosa chaat, dal curry, and mango lassi.
I personally want them to come to Japan if I can eat such amazing food at the food court at the shopping mall...
To go back to our B&B, we planned to take a taxi back, but it started to rain very hard just like the night before and it became a storm with thunders!!
The whole shopping mall had a blackout and we started to worry.
Because we had to leave Kochi very early in the morning to Delhi...we hadn't packed anything yet...what time could we get to our B&B?...our washing were out on the rooftop, but they must had been soaked by now, then that made our packing a bit difficult... We couldn't possibly take a bus with those shopping bags as the bus would be packed as usual. Could we find a taxi soon?.... So many things came across in our minds.
We went outside of the mall to find a taxi stand, but there was no such thing exist!!
WHY!? WHHHYYYYY!!!!???? This supposed to be a huge shopping mall, wasn't it!? It couldn't be!!
The city was shrouded by heavy rain. We had no mobile phones. We knew no taxi company number.
Many cars came into a roundabout, but they were all private cars to pick up their families or rickshaws to drop off their customers at the mall. Even we caught one of those rickshaws, they would never go to Kochi for us as it's too far away. We were desperate to catch a mini taxi. We dashed with many other Indian people to every taxi came into the mall. We were afraid of being turned down by telling our final destination whic was way too far away for the cab to go, so we just said we wanted to go to the nearest main road. Once we got on the taxi, we asked the driver the truth. We were sorry to trick him, but it was an emergency. But the driver didn't speak English, so we were not sure if we made ourselves understood or not.
The main road from Kochi to Lulu mall had been having a huge construction of a subway, so there was a traffic regulation. So naturally there was a huge traffic congestion. Also we were having a storm, and every car seemed to move only a millimeter at a time. Only we could do was to endure inside of the taxi which was blocking rain with a vinyl sheet. Somehow we crossed the bridge to Kochi fiannly, we saw a light of hope. After that, in the dark street with no light, we tried to find familiar sight to get to our street. As our B&B address had no street number.
Almost miraculously, we got to our B&B and unloaded our shopping bags which we had MANY.
Our hosts had been waiting up for us as they were worrying about us as we were really late. It was nearly ten in the evening and we couldn't make it for our dinner cooking class we planned together. This time we were supposed to learn paratha from our host mother's mom who came all the way for us to do it, but she couldn't wait more and she cooked everything for us and had already left. We were very sorry for her. Also our host mother wasn't feeling good at all.
Our taxi fare was the price we negotiated when we got on at the mall. We were grateful as the driver had to go through the traffic and also heavy rain to come this far.
We were tremendously tired, but we pulled ourselves together to make sure of the things we had to do tonight.
As we were eating cold paratha, beef curry, and fried beef, we were too exhausted to make our smile naturally. That was hard for us to be like that as the food was really good.
We double checked out taxi time next morning with out host father as we asked him to arrange it for us. Our rough plan in Delhi. How we deal with our baggage while we were in town. A shower room and etc. Few cooking classes we sent e-mails were either it was canceled or we received no reply. So we changed our plan and decided to look around the town. We also need to pack. This must be done tonight.
We asked Afzal to get some cardboard boxes in the morning, but as we asked him too many things, he had completely forgotten about it. But he get few boxes for us in the end. He was truly a kindest guy ever.
Our washing was soaking wet and also some fell off from the washing rope. We asked Afzal to spin them for us, but their spinner was in a bad mood, so our washing came back with bits of barks and sands. But they helped us out a lot even though it was nearly midnight.
Jezna came to say good bye to us despite being sick.
It was after midnight when we finished our packing and laid ourselves on the bed.
We had to wake up at 2 a.m. So we only had two hours sleep, but we could never do the rest of our trip without this two hours.
At 3 a.m. the taxi came.
As our hosts were completely asleep, so tried our best to be quiet to load our stuffs and got ourselves in the taxi.
The taxi was air-conditioned. It was cool and quiet and very comfortable.
We became sleepy soon after we got on and slumbered away. In the street of Kochi, only a few chai stalls were open and we said good-bye to Kochi.
To be continued...
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