My plan was to check out of the hotel at 8pm, walk for a while to a restaurant and have dinner. Then I would walk to the train station and wait for about an hour there for my 11:30pm train. Of course it didn't work out that way.
After I checked out of the hotel I was thinking to myself about how I've met many kind people in Cochin. I met one guy from the Himalayas who moved to Cochin a year ago and was pleased with how nice people were generally (although he said they're nicer in his town). He also said that you'll find good people and assholes everywhere, which I firmly believe. But I also believe that there is a pulse to a city, state, or country. There is a general attitude, although it doesn't dictate everyone's actions. I came to Cochin with a Mysore frame of mind and I felt like a jerk on a few occasions. I went to return a defective bootleg cricket video game and was prepared for a battle. Instead the guy gave me my money back with no fuss. There went my dreams of.. "You never gave me a receipt." "Sorry, you can't return it without a receipt." As I reach into my pocket and pull out my fist, "Oh wait, here's my receipt." I never got a chance to use that one.
Just as I was thinking that on my way to dinner a guy starts yelling at me and called me a fucker. Suddenly I was surrounded by 4 guys. Two were apologizing prefusely for the man's actions. The other was a little old man who was instigating, probably emboldened by the presence of his 3 yound friends. Had I thrown a punch and missed, I still think I would've killed the little old man. I looked into the eyes of the original asshole and he was gone. Probably on some hard stuff. He tried to blow smoke into my face, but I was too short. Eventually the 2 sane guys pulled their friend away and he called me a fucker again at which point I picked up a rock and the 2 sane guys frantically continued to apologize. Fate is a wonderful thing as I had my very heavy bag on which prevented me from doing anything stupid.
After dinner I had way more time than I anticipated. I made a fateful decision to walk to the dock, which was out of the way from the train station. I got there and sensing rain I left for the station quickly. That's when I got caught in the heavy rain. I tried to wait it out. I even tried to get a rickshaw but they were ripping me off big time so I declined. Eventually a man (I think his name is Shahaub) offered me a ride. His ride turned out to be the back of his motorcycle (no helmet of course) with my very heavy bag on my back through the flooded Cochin streets. I thanked him so much and offered him money. He freaked out and I apologized for offering. He wished me a good trip. What a lovely person.
I laid down in the train and realized that I was wet and smelly. Of all the times to actually have A/C, of course I had it while I was soaked.
Mangalore reminds me a bit of Mysore as far as the grittyness, but it's not as bad. Big modern buildings replace Mysore's historic buildings. I ate lunch for 70 cents and half of that was a Coke. But I checked into a nice hotel for a day. Shahaub warned me about robberies in Mangalore, but I doubt the threat is any worse than Mysore (or Washington DC!).
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