The doctor tells me to go vegetarian for the course of the treatment and this proves to be no hardship as the vegetable dishes in India are absolutely luscious. In particular, the Kerala people cook everything in coconut oil and throw in a huge blob of coconut to boot. Vegetables cooked in a delicious cashew paste are also irresistible. I am wondering about the calorific value of all these dishes. Servings are huge so I compromise by eating half (or mostly three-quarters!). Two vegetable dishes that I find totally yummy are Thoran and Avial. However, Dr. Jayahari has already said not to have any coconut oil as I had an oily condition. This presents a problem. The hotel does not serve an Ayurvedic menu. I notice an advertisement for a restaurant nearby that claims to be the only restaurant at Kovalam Beach that serves Ayurvedic food, though I never visit it. This might be a problem - surely a hotel which has an Ayurvedic clinic attached to it should offer the appropriate food? So I can hardly feel guilty if I eat the coconutty dishes on offer. I am supposed to drink banana stem juice after each treatment. I never did find out what that was like as they never had any available. Apparently cucumber juice is a good substitute.
When you are brought up on sliced bread, it is easy to go crazy about the Indian breads. They are the best. Garlic naan, roti, fluffy parotta, stuffed breads, etc, the variety is endless. The breads are crunchy, fluffy, garlicky and spicy and absolutely luscious.
One of the best aspects of Kerala for a recovering sugar addict like myself, is that there is absolutely nowhere to get a pastry sugar fix. Overall I saw only one cake shop in the whole state. Generally, most meals end in fruit. Some of their favourite desserts are dishes made of vermicelli or red rice (Payasam) or carrot (Carrot Kheer). I think that pineapple is not a bad way to end a meal here.
I quickly become addicted to their wonderful spicy teas. Cardamon tea and masala tea are wonderful if you love spices. Masala tea is thick with spices including a liberal sprinkling of black pepper.
While I relish foreign food, my mother has a big problem. She is allergic to chilli so she suffers terribly. Even after intensive questioning and the waiters denial that there is any chilli in a dish, she would take a mouthful and have to spit it out. India is not the country for people with chilli allergies!
The next day I am given my treatment program for the next fourteen days plus an assortment of herbal pills and herbal liquid to be taken on either side of each meal.
The program comprises the foot massage, hand massage, Shirodhara, steam baths, oil and steam baths, massages with herbal powders, enemas, herbal purges, medicated ghee treatments and ear, nose and eye cleansing.
After four days of treatment my blood pressure has dropped to its best level in ten years - 120/80 and I am feeling very good. I am feeling supple, and can easily run my hands along the floor with unbent legs.
The doctor weighs me and I have only lost one third of a kilo! Not to worry, I must not go out on Sunday because that will be the big day when I have a purgative herbal medicine. I must not have breakfast and must stay in with heaps of toilet paper.
Day four introduces an interesting treatment. As per usual, I have an all over body (foot) massage, a head massage and a manual massage. Then a portable cooker and wok is brought bedside. The wok is heated and the masseuse places a tied up bulging bag in the wok until steam rises from it. Before I can argue, she pounds my back vigorously with the hot bag. As she bashes away she tells me that the contents are green leaves which 'are good for losing weight'. She reheats the bag and sometimes it is a little too hot but what to do? It is after all, for my own good!
Afterwards, I decide to go down to Kovalam Beach and see what is happening down there. I have hitherto avoided it as I have to walk down about five flights of very steep stairs and then negotiate a narrow path that winds through the back of all the holiday resorts. Kovalam Beach is the most famous beach in Kerala, having been discovered by hippies years ago, but now it attracts travellers from all over the world. The water looks very inviting - but not so the unattractive black sand. I have been told that many overseas beaches have dark sand and here is a case in point. The surf looks very inviting but I notice no one sitting on the sand. The beach is littered with beach beds and umbrellas which are obviously for hire. Yes, a fellow sidles up to me and offers me use of a bed for 150 rupees. This would be open to negotiation but I just nod. Not today.
Immediately I am accosted by a host of beach vendors. Bongos are banged in my face - would I like to buy drums? No? But for my children? For a friend? No? But these are the best drums in India! Bang! Bang!
How about a pineapple? How much? 100 rupees.
"One hundred rupees!" I shriek. "That would be $2.50 in Australia and I just can't believe that they would cost that much here!"
"But they are very sweet, very juicy, Indian pineapples!"
"Well I don't want them at that price." I'm now thinking that a nice juice pineapple would be a yummy lunch. Maybe they've been sun ripened rather than gassed in the Woolies warehouse.
"Then 90 rupees?" she asks.
"No, I'll pay 50 rupees, and that's too much anyway," I say curtly.
She looks insulted and brings down the price to 80 rupees.
"No, don't want it," I bark and then turn on my heels.
I've walked a few metres when she runs after me. "Seventy rupees?" she begs.
"OK, I'll pay 60 rupees but that's my final offer!"
She smiles a toothless smile and happily hands me the pineapple.
It was indeed very juicy but I later discover that the locals pay twenty rupees for their pineapples!
Next I am accosted by a man selling kaftans/ shifts/ wrap arounds.
"No, I don't want to buy anything."
"When are you leaving?" he asks.
"In two weeks' time."
Pointing to himself he says confidentially, "My name is Johnny Be Good. You must remember my name. Don't go to anyone else. You are my customer now."
I promise not to succumb to any other kaftan/shift/wrap around salesperson. Johnny Be Good will be watching.
The amazing thing is that another day I see the same salesman and he reminds me of our conversation. He actually remembers when I said I was leaving. A German lady walks by and I mutter under my breath to her. She laughs and says that the beach hawkers look at tourists in a different way to us. "They scan us in just like a computer," she says. "Even if you come back in two years' time they remember you." I believe her as time and time again I am amazed by their phenomenal memory of every critical detail - firstly my appearance, then the exact day I will be leaving and also the items on which my greedy eyes alighted. They are human computers.
I am accosted by another kaftan/shift/wrap around salesperson.
"My name is Shridda? Can you remember that name? Repeat it for me!"
"Shridda."
"Well, you want to buy a lovely dress?"
"No thanks."
"When are you leaving?"
"Two weeks' time."
"Then you come back and only buy a dress from me - Shridda. OK? Promise?"
"OK."
We shake hands on it but I'm now beginning to worry about my easy promises. What will happen if I reneg and buy off Johnny Be Good or someone else?
Another tourist tells me what happens. She bought a wrap around off someone and another salesperson to whom she'd given her promise, ran over and the two vendors almost come to fisticuffs. How stressful was all this!!!
And so it goes on. Drum sellers, kaftan sellers, fruit, bead and ring sellers, card, puppet and CD vendors, all vie with one another to win customers and create goodwill. Even looking in a shop window is torture. I do not know how they do it but the exact instant you peer in at the window display, a head pops out the door. "You want to see inside? I have very nice things inside."
Of course we all know that once inside there will be no easy escape.
It is looking like a trip to the beach is not as pleasant as one would hope. The thought of having to dodge all those anxious faces on a regular basis is too horrible to contemplate.
And beware the hand that comes out to greet you. I make the mistake of shaking hands with a proffered hand and suddenly I encounter a vice-like grip that hauls me in! I have to struggle to escape the trap.
Taking a walk out the front of the resort is not much better. There is a long winding road that winds down a very narrow street lined by little shops. Unfortunately, one of those shops happens to be a tailor who, having once dragged me into his shop to inspect all his materials, has now well and truly 'scanned me into his database' and races into the street to accost me every time he sees me in the vicinity. I made the mistake of idly enquiring as to the price of a pair of trousers for myself. Well of course I would have to select a piece of material for a quote. Already I was feeling the pressure. I casually pointed to a piece at the top of the pile. Oh, that was a very expensive cotton so it would cost more than the other pieces! Why hadn't I picked the piece below it? Drat. The tailors critically eye my fat legs, all the while jabbering away, until finally they say it will require two and a half metres due to my size and it will cost 1200 rupees ($30). I shrug. I didn't want trousers anyway - it was only an idle enquiry. I guess $30 is a pretty good price for a pair of slacks but then I would rather have a piece of material that I really like rather than one from a pile in their shop. But it does make me think that next time I will go back with a suitcase full of all those scraps of material that have been sitting in my cupboard for years. Then maybe I could shop around for the best price. Probably the best price is not to be found in a tourist resort!
Maybe I will just stay indoors and watch cable television.
Sunday arrives. I do not have breakfast and dutifully arrive for my purging. I am given a hand massage, followed by a steam bath. The steam bath is a large wooden box sitting alone it a little room. The room is already full of steam and a eucalyptus scent. I climb inside and the box is closed up on me so that only my head pokes out the top. I wallow in the steam, feeling uncannily like an actor in a scene from Thunderball.
Talking about Thunderball, I have just remembered something that I was told by my neighbour in the plane at our Singapore embarkation. She was the last person on the plane and was visibly disturbed. She told me that she had been delayed due to the fact that she had had a problem at customs due to a snowball, of all things. As you know, you can only take the most minuscule amount of liquids on board an aircraft these days. She was terribly upset as a snowball her son had given to her was confiscated due to the liquid therein! And while I am on the topic, take care because if you buy duty free alcohol and you have a connecting flight, you will almost certainly lose the alcohol as it is now too late to put it in checked in luggage and you cannot carry it on the plane. Apparently a man bought a number of bottles of expensive cognac at the duty free shop and when he changed planes, they were taken off him. He nearly had a nervous breakdown over the issue.
Anyway, back to Ayurveda. Every pore cleansed, the doctor takes me to my room where he watches me drink a bitter herbal concoction. He tells me that the herbs are so strong they can dissolve bone. Hence, all the nasties that have been lurking in the twisted depths of my colon will be dissolved and flushed away. It will take three quarters of an hour to take effect and sure enough, at the appointed time I find myself gagging. I am simultaneously stricken with a desire to vomit and to go to the toilet. However, the next day the scales give a very good result. I have lost four kilos! And of course, I have thoroughly cleansed my large intestine. All those nasty bits and pieces that have been sitting half digested for years are now floating in the Ganges.
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