After four weeks in India, I can tell you one thing: there is such a thing as too much curry. Eating various types of curry for breakfast, lunch and dinner makes you eventually feel like you would give a kingdom for anything but curry. Eventually your clothes will start smelling like curry and so will your sweat (believe me!). Personally, I reached my curry limit after three weeks, I just had enough. My taste-buds had grown numb and so has my appetite. Enough is enough. Coincidentally, this also perfectly sums up the way I felt about Jaipur: too much of a good thing can eventually become a not so good thing. Naturally I was eager to start the next part of our field course: Kerala.
Last Saturday I flew from Jaipur to Trivandrum and let me tell you, traveling an entire day can make a world of difference. It’s not like that’s new knowledge, as you may know, I had my fair share of experiences with that but I never thought that crossing a country could make me instantly feel like a complete person again. See, I grew up in a landlocked country. All bodies of water we had were either lakes or rivers and although stunning…
…to me, nothing comes even close to this:
The second I lay eyes on the ocean, any ocean for that matter, I feel like a whole person. It’s always been like that, even when I almost drowned at the young age of seven and my dad was barely able to save me at the very last second. Or when my fourteen-year old me was heartbroken because my first big love broke up with me right before I left for my family-vacation to the beach, the second I laid my eyes on this beauty, all the pain was forgotten. Or last year, when the under current almost pulled me out to the sea. The happiness I feel in my heart when I see the ocean has never dwindled.
It’s no surprise, that when I saw the ocean out of middle seat in the airplane I felt that my heart skip a beat. My mind was racing, I just had to get to the ocean as soon as possible, no matter the cost and I did.
Happiness I only feel at the ocean. Any ocean. #beachselfie #India #Trivandrum #Kerala #fieldtrip
//platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js
So far, Kerala has been interesting and there is definitely a world of difference between Kerala and Rajasthan. People are nice enough not to constantly stare at us, as if we were aliens. I also haven’t noticed millions of people taking pictures of us either voluntarily or non-voluntarily. Kids still want us to wave at them constantly, which is fine, this way I can pretend I get an arm-workout from all the waving while wandering around in the streets. And speaking of, the streets are definitely cleaner than Jaipur’s streets, the air smells like tropical island air and the food is different.
So yes, up to now, there is little to nothing I can report (read: complain) about. Mostly also because I’ve been here less than 72 hours and most of the time I spend lounging, sleeping and talking to Indian students about major differences between Norway and India. But fear not, the first big field visit is scheduled for tomorrow where I will be able to interact with some fishermen and discuss the difficulties they are facing. Well, either that, or I will be strolling along the beach, digging my heels into the wet sand and loving every second of it.
After my #summer2k16 in Germany and having been in India for the past month, I can honestly say, that being at the beach is a welcomed change and definitely makes me feel like I can breath easy again. Life is perfect. Well, almost. Life is never quite perfect without A close by…
A bird loves a fish 
Thank you for your comment.