So anyways, the story of Jess getting mugged goes like this. I was having the same stomach troubles I am right now two weeks ago so wasn't feeling well. After convincing Jess to let me rest for a bit I promised to go with her to the tiger reserve that afternoon. The big thing to do there is a boat around the lake to spot wildlife and we went in a couple of hours early to book tickets on one of the boats. Since we had skipped lunch do to my stomach Jess was munching on potato chips just as we arrived in the park. A monkey jumps down from a tree and begins pawing Jess trying to get to the bag. Jess freaks out and covers her face and grabs me, still holding the bag near her face. After a paranoid yell of "Drop the bag!", I had to snatch it myself and toss it to the little bastard before he started biting. We got laughed at by a few honeymooning Indian couples as the thief ran away with his prize.
Those same mobs of honeymooners also had booked up tickets for the boat hours in advance, so we had to settle for just walking around a little. We spotted plenty of other monkey thieves stealing from anyone with food in their hands and more often than not fighting with each other over their ill gotten gains.
The funniest stuff happened when we were sitting in the snack bar getting Jess something to eat after losing the chips. Tons of monkeys were outside trying to reach into the room while signs warned us in no uncertain terms not to feed the monkeys. Now in most countries park personnel would keep the tourists in check and enforce the rules. In India the park personnel were having a laugh taunting the monkeys with food just out of their reach.
So the best thief of them all waits until everyone leaves for their boat trip and it's just Jess, myself and an Indian couple in the snack bar. Before anyone realizes what's happening the monkey has opened the door, jumped onto the Indian couple's table, snatched a bag of peanuts from the table and an ice-cream cone from the now screaming Indian woman. The monkey then jumped back to the door, managed to somehow open it with both hands full and ran off with his goods.
So even though I wasn't feeling well it was still a pretty interesting day. And I was a stupid idiot and forgot to add the other two things we did on that first day.
#1 We rode an elephant, it was Jess's first time!
#2 We watched a show of Kalari, the local form of martial arts. Wasn't too shabby.
So that was just about it for Kerala. We also saw a local form of theater after the monkey thieving business called Kathakali. It might have been fascinating if I understood it at all but we both got seriously confused and bored pretty quickly. Then an 8 hour drive to Trivandrum, the state capital, the next day only to find out at 8 in the evening that all hotels were booked full because of the International Kerala Film Festival. Took us about an hour but we found a fairly nice and very expensive hotel on the outskirts of town. After Jess flew out two days later I headed out on a train and began the solo leg of my trip... (to be continued)
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