Sun 14

Given the previous evening’s fuckery, we arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare. We killed as much as we could in an overcrowded AC lounge, and headed to the gate, there running into a friend of Lindsay’s, and only then finding out the flight was slightly delayed. We grabbed a stupid-expensive drink from a nearby bar while we waited.

The flight itself was great, for me at least: I watched Dune 2, ate dinner, fell asleep for a few hours, and woke up just before breakfast.

Mon 15

Amsterdam! After enduring a very long customs line, mistaking where we’d pick up our bags, and being confused at where to meet an Uber, we were at our hotel. We elected to stay somewhere central, and as much as we would have loved to revisit the Conservatorium, we’d instead opted for the Hotel Aalders on the next street over. We napped for a few hours, then walked to meet a friend at Cafe de Spuyt, a beer bar we’d enjoyed years earlier.

View this post on Instagram

Two more friends, also attending the same conference as Lindsay, joined us and we set out in search of dinner. We were in a very touristy part of town so the pickings were slim. We tried Pantry but it was rammed, so we ended up at De Hollande Tulp, which was actually pretty good. Bitterballen and stamppots all round! We went back to De Spuyt for one last drink, then retired early as two of the three conference-goers presented the next morning.

Tue 16

I grabbed our coffee from an excellent nearby place (Coffee District) and then Lindsay was off to her conference, so I opted to hang out on our room’s balcony for a bit and then wander around Amsterdam a bit.

View this post on Instagram

After looping randomly around some streets just checking stuff out I ended up grabbing a cortado at the Screaming Beans on Runstraat, then walked back to the hotel, feeling quite sweaty, via the Vondelpark. Before long I needed some lunch and found myself at The Seafood Bar. I had a scampi & mango salad (which was big enough to be a meal) and glass of Chablis, followed by some salmon w/ grilled leek and a Provencal rosé. On the way home it started raining – hard – but the lovely great trees on our street protected me from the worst of it.

I dried off in the room and watched the new episode of House of the Dragon before walking back downtown to meet the same group of friends, this time at Shiraz Bar du Vin. The wine list was good but the vibe was weird, so we didn’t stay for food. In hindsight, we probably should have, because from there it became a gong show. We wandered aimlessly before kind of falling into Mikkeller at Morebeer for beer and fried snacks, then walking to Cafe de Koe where we learned the chef was out sick, then walking back to someplace called Bar-B Burgers & Beer. I have no idea why we were on a burger kick, but there we were. The burgers at this place were okay, but the place was VERY weird inside. Like it couldn’t decide if it was a cozy burger joint or a big soulless-purple-glowing-Heineken-sign-in-the-rec-room kind of place. We ate fast and ran, kind of annoyed at ourselves for this kind of unforced error.

Wed 17

Lindsay went back to her conference. I went looking for Indian rupees. (I was unsuccessful.) The main upside of getting all sweaty from walking around was trying an iced coffee from Bocca, after which I headed home. I got the call that the others were ready for lunch; we ended up going back to The Seafood Bar I’d visited the day before. Collectively we got oysters and salmon/avocado tartare, scampi mango salad, Champagne, 3 x fish & chips, pumpkin ravioli, and spaghetti vongole.

We ran back to the hotel to re-pack and head to the airport. We were flying Etihad for the first time, which I was excited about – business class, no less. Luckily we had access to the KLM lounge before our flight; that luxury translated over to the flight itself, which was on a fancy, new, streamlined plane. We didn’t get much sleep, alas, by the time we arrived in Abu Dhabi the next morning.

View this post on Instagram

Thu 18

Before continuing on to India, we had an 8-hour stopover. The Etihad lounge in which we spent it was by far the nicest airport lounge I’ve ever experienced. We drank coffee and tea and juice, ate a few gourmet-level meals, got some light shuteye on the cozy chairs at the back, cleaned up in their immaculate washrooms, had some sparkling wine…what a space. Before we knew it we were heading to our final outbound flight: Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India. The plane was much simpler than the 787 we’d flown from Amsterdam, but it was only 4.5 hours.

Our arrival was a bit choppy – an overzealous Indian customs agent did not believe that our friend was getting married in Trivandrum – but we eventually got through and found Tess & Keal and Tess’ friend Dan (who grew up nearby) who were there to pick us up. By the time we walked to the car I’d sweated through my clothes, which was a taste of what was to come. We drove to the Uday Suites, checked in, and crashed right out.

Fri 19

Pretty exhausted from our travel, we had a good lie-in before finally rising and joining people by the pool to get introduced. It wasn’t too hot yet, as long as you were in the shade and ideally near a fan. We had some lunch at the hotel restaurant, took a lil nap, and then got ready for wedding celebration #1.

There was a poolside reception where we got to meet more people, then an excellent dinner and many lovely speeches, then lots and lots of dancing. The strobe lights (and possibly the smoke machines, and also possibly the heat which had all us Canadians/Swedes sweating profusely) gave me a pounding headache so I retreated early in favor of Advil, but Lindsay kept partying until the wee hours.

Sat 20

We managed to get up for breakfast (well…I did) and then we had some shopping to do. We were off to Jayalakshmi, a popular clothing store for formal attire. Lindsay got a traditional Indian outfit; I didn’t, which I would come to regret. After that experience we needed lunch so we uber’d to Turf Café for cranberry coffees / iced lattes / a cortado for me / some very significant burgers. What was it with us and burgers on this trip?

View this post on Instagram

A quick stop at LuLu Mall later and we were back at the hotel for a bit of rest. We went to the home of the groom’s parents (who are lovely, by the way) for dinner, but left early as the next day was a big one.

Sun 21

Up early-ish and off to the venue. To my chagrin I realized that every one of the other visiting guests had acquired traditional wedding attire, while I was in a jacket and dress pants – I was so embarrassed. I had to remind myself that no one would be looking at me though — the bride would rightfully garner all the eyeballs. Anyway, as her quasi-family Lindsay and I had some duties, which we were honored to perform and very thankful not to mess up. This was the more traditional ceremony, and it was over quickly, but also featuring an officiant briefly catching on fire.

After the ceremony we ate an enormous meal downstairs, with some lovely locals helping us navigate what we were eating (and how to eat it) before washing up, taking more pictures, and heading back to the hotel to change. Once again we re-convened at the parents’ house for dinner and to say some goodbyes. We went back to the room and I had a little nap…which was a mistake, because I didn’t get to sleep again until 2.

Mon 22

We got several good hours of sleep in, but I woke up extremely stuffed up and with a sore throat. I assumed it was a reaction to the air conditioning, which was running non-stop in the room, since when I stepped outside into the 80%+ humidity I immediately felt better. But it would get worse over the course of the week.

We went downstairs for breakfast and to say bye to two new friends, Diya and Dan, and then just settled in for a lazy day. We relaxed in the room. We sat on our balcony once some rain went through and made the humidity tolerable. We eventually met Tom & Keal for a quick walk, dodging packs of wild dogs, down to the Old Coffee House on the water, had kombucha and milkshakes, and soaked in the sea air & pounding surf of the Laccadive Sea – which, truthfully, I thought was the Arabian Sea until I looked it up.

View this post on Instagram

There was a small side-trip planned for the middle of the week, so we packed all the non-sweaty clothes that remained into a single suitcase and went out for an early dinner. We decided to splash out a bit at one of the fancier places in town: Villa Maya. It’s an absolutely stunning place, built in a palace, with tables cloistered off in little sections surrounded by plants and water. We ordered way too much food, though they seemed incredulous that we couldn’t eat it all. (That wasn’t the first time this had happened; I can put away a lot of food, but I’d already had multiple locals giggle at how full I felt.) We had mutton and prawn appetizers; fish curry and pork ularthu and a trio of paneer; and some kind of coconut ice cream dessert that escapes me now. We also had a bottle of local sparkling wine to go with it all – more on that in a minute. All in all, the food quality & flavours, the service, the ambience…this place was an order of magnitude more expensive than most of what we’d tried in Trivandrum (still, the cost was roughly 50% of what we would have paid in Toronto for a meal of the same quality, if you excluded booze) but it was one of the best meals we’ve had in months.

View this post on Instagram

A couple notes on wine:

1. By and large, it’s not that easy to come by. Our hotel restaurant didn’t have it on demand, as far as I knew. At most, places would have a few wine selections, Kingfisher (and maybe a couple big international beer brands like Heineken or Corona), and no spirits unless it was a high-end hotel restaurant. The cost of any booze was also extremely high, compared to the food – for example, at Villa Maya, one bottle of local sparkling cost nearly as much as the five dishes + dessert mentioned above.
2. 100% of the wine I drank in India was made in India. I’d never before tried Indian wine, and I still haven’t tried any Indian red wine (it was too hot to drink anything but white), but what I had I thought was pretty decent. While I’m sure there are more, the brands I saw on most lists were Sula, Grover, Fratelli, and occasionally Big Banyan; of these Sula was by far my favourite. I was surprised to find that most of the grapes are grown around the Maharashtra region, which is only about 20 degrees north of the equator (when normally grapes grow between 30 and 50 degrees latitude) so I’m guessing the wines must be planted at altitude to help cool them.

Anyway, dinner went on a little longer than we wanted, given we needed to be up stupid early the next morning to catch a train, so we went back to the room, did a bit more packing, and tried to get some sleep.

Tue 23

NARRATOR: They didn’t get any sleep.

Between our full bellies, and the power going off and on five times in the middle of the night (causing things to beep loudly each time), our sleep was basically non-existent. We scrambled out the door, just barely, and got in our taxis to the train station. About 20 of us were off to Kochi!

We arrived, fought through the Uber chaos, endured a bit of confusion around the car ferry that takes people to Fort Kochi (one of the city’s islands) and arrived as a group at Kashi Art Cafe for breakfast. My French Toast was excellent, as was Lindsay’s Turkish egg. After that we dropped our bags at the Forte Kochi hotel, which looked absolutely gorgeous, then went for a walk around while our rooms were readied. We saw enormous trees, walked along the waterfront (fending off aggressive autorickshaw drivers and street vendors all the while), and walked back to the hotel on quiet streets. Fort Kochi, the part of the city where we stayed, was much more walkable – making it also much more touristy. But we didn’t mind. It was a beautiful spot.

Finally able to access our rooms, we showered and cooled down (that walk was about as hot and sweaty as it got), hung out and had some lunch by the pool, and generally just chilled. Many of us went to Francis where we took over a room upstairs for dinner – most notably: giant bowls of sausage. The beer and wine and conversation and laughs flowed freely all night. We took a short walk by the water, then strolled back to our hotel for some much-needed sleep.

Wed 24

After some very excellent breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant (which, it turns out, was once the first department store in Kerala) many of us went to Mattancherry Palace, located at the edge of – and I promise you, it feels very weird to write this – Jew Town. We did a little shopping afterwards, but cut it short when Lindsay had to flee the heat. We Ubered over to Lila to meet Tess and Ellie, cooled down with some iced drinks, then walked to lunch at Fusion Bay, which was excellent.

We were just around the corner from a shop Tess wanted to revisit (One Zero Eight by Save The Loom) and we tagged along. We bought a beautiful blanket; Lindsay bought a dress and a notebook. We hit another shop or two on the way home as well. Pooped and poorer, we slid into the hotel to reset before going out for the evening. The whole group came out to see a Kathakali show, which was very much unlike anything I’d ever seen before. The theatre, the makeup, the costumes, the dancing – all pretty incredible, and in a tiny intimate (read: hot) setting.

Afterward we split into a couple groups, one of which followed me around the corner to Divine – The Wine Lounge, upstairs in the Malabar House hotel. The vibes were weird, but we got some tasty & cold bottles of local Viognier which I thought were pretty good. After that I directed two friends to Fusion Bay for dinner while the remainder of us walked back to the hotel. Ultimately we ended up as a group of six Nova Scotians eating an excellent dinner at Jetty, the hotel’s restaurant.

Thu 25

A day of stories!

This day started with another train ride, but a much more leisurely morning getting there than the inbound trip. Plenty of time to eat breakfast and re-pack; Lindsay even found some time to read by the pool. Things would get adventurous, though: about halfway to the train, it started to rain. Like, really rain. Crazy monsoon rain. When we arrived we told our Uber driver to stay dry; Tom, Kealin, and I jumped out and unpacked the car in a frenzy, Tom throwing stuff to Keal and I and then all three of us dashing under cover. Soon the train pulled in, and as we picked up our stuff to board, I asked them if they wanted me to carry their bag on for them. They said, “That’s not our bag.” We suddenly realized we’d taken the Uber driver’s bag, which had been in the back of his car when he rolled up. In the panicked chaos of our arrival, we were just trying to get out of the monsoon rain and I’d assumed the bag was Tom & Kealin’s while they assumed it was mine. Anyway, we had no time to rectify this as our train was just then pulling in and would only halt for two minutes. Luckily, Aravind’s parents’ friends’ son-in-law (follow that?) was sitting on the platform near us waiting for a later train, and Aravind just threw him the bag and said he’d call to explain after we boarded. (Station security wouldn’t accept it, nor would any stores.) A whole series of Uber support submissions and phone calls later, Aravind somehow got the driver to return to the station and collect the bag before the the son-in-law’s train departed. A minor miracle!

Some snacks and naps later we arrived back in Trivandrum, once again braved an Uber maelstrom, and got freshened up. A few of us went for an early dinner at O Cafe, in a fancy hotel. This is where story #2 unfolds.

First, the three of us who arrived early – Lindsay, Aravind and I – were looked up and down by the staff and then by the manager and told all their tables were “blocked for reservations”. Not reserved. Just being held in case someone reserved them. We were like…but we’re here now, and we will pay you. The place was empty at that moment, with maybe one or two more tables occupied, but they seemed terrified of running out of space. They agreed to give us a table if we promised to be out by 7:00 or 7:30 when the buffet opened. This started us off on a weird foot.

Second: don’t go to a fancy Indian restaurant before 7. They were serving only small snacks until then, so we ordered Chicken 65 and a few other things to go with our cocktails. That’s right, cocktails: this place had spirits. Tess and Ellie had arrived by now, so they too got to experience the extremely slow, casual, and clumsy service we’d been receiving from the jump. We’d go fifteen minutes without seeing anyone. Drinks sat empty on the table, the ice melting into a glass of water. At one point a server dropped a piece of pizza in Tess’ lap, and then just smiled and walked off like nothing happened. We never saw him again. It seems likely that these guys weren’t servers at all. They must have been food runners or bussers who were thrust into service duty when the restaurant thought no one would be there, not expecting a bunch of foreigners to show up needing cocktails.

Third: when 7PM rolled around the vast majority of tables were still empty. A few large groups had come in for the buffet, but nothing that warranted us being rushed. Finally, a decent server showed up and handled us from there, so we ordered some real food – we got two large meat platters and a bunch of parotta (which had become the star of the show for all us visitors to Southern India) – and ate our fill. All while wondering what all the table-scarcity fuss was about.

Fourth: the moment we finished with the boards, the staff started buzzing our table. Five people asked us in as many minutes if we were done, if we wanted any dessert, if they could clear the table – sometimes reaching for drinks that people were still enjoying – until we eventually just said, Okay let’s go. We had no idea why they were so insistent; the place was empty enough you could fire a cannon through it and not hit anything.

As we were leaving, Tess asked for the manager’s name, so she could mention it in a review. That prompted him to follow her out and ask if we had any concerns. Tess (never one to shy away from sharing her thoughts) and Aravind (instilled with a bit of liquid courage) laid it out plainly, making sure they didn’t just take it out on the staffers – he (the manager) set the tone, and the tone was garbage. Anyway: high entertainment. We told this story about ten times when we met up with the rest of the group at BLND for drinks, and the first round of farewells.

Fri 26

Our last day in India. We got screwed over by the hotel restaurant – now that Tess and Aravind’s wedding was over they kind of stopped being nice to us – then joined a few new friends in visiting the excellent Kerala Arts & Crafts Village in nearby Kovalam. It’s a stunning venue showcasing dozens of artists and craftspeople in one convenient location. We bought some art and a terracotta vase and some other small things, and prayed they would fit in our suitcases.

As it turned out they did, largely because we were now carrying a separate duffel bag for our flight home. We were ready early enough that we could hang out with the remaining folks by the pool for a bit and say our goodbyes before leaving for the airport. We’d heard plenty of horror stories about delays and long lines at TRV, so we arrived three hours early…and pretty much sailed right through. Luckily we had access to the lounge, so we killed some time there.

A relatively short flight to Abu Dhabi later and we were ready for some shuteye. We’d booked a room at the AUHotel, which is in the transit area of the airport itself, so we didn’t have to clear customs or leave the airport. The rooms are bare bones and don’t even have windows (at least our room didn’t) but we didn’t care. We just wanted a bed and a private bathroom with a shower. We hoped it would let us rest enough to take on the long journey ahead.

Sat 27

Mission accomplished: that hotel room worked a treat. We woke up, showered, got a change of clothes from the duffel, and walked maybe ten minutes to our gate just before our flight home boarded. We couldn’t have asked for a better layover.

The plane on our flight home wasn’t quite as posh as the flight from Amsterdam (that plane had been a 787; this was an older 777) but we weren’t complaining. I stayed awake the entire 14-hour flight, killing most of that by watching the Lord Of The Rings trilogy and enjoying some free wifi. The staff were exceptional, the food was excellent, and – burning throat aside (I was sick with what felt like a full-blown cold by this time, though the flight didn’t bother my sinuses in the least) – I felt pretty damn good when we arrived in Toronto. We sped through terminal 3 so quickly it felt like we were doing something wrong. Toronto traffic fouled our mood a bit, but we arrived at the house pretty glad to be home.

Epilogue

It’s been a few days, and we haven’t done much but try to shake this cold, get over the jet lag, and ease back into normal life. It’ll take some time to process such a long and intense trip, but on top of being honored that we were invited to share in the wedding of one of Lindsay’s oldest friends, we felt such gratitude that we got to meet their friends from Sweden, and Aravind’s family and friends. What a wonderful group of people. Usually people bring gifts to the bride and groom, but in this case, I feel like they gave us something precious.