Day 23: Vadakara – Chellary

The monsoon struck. Finally. After days of uncertainty and nights of distant lightning, last night the rains hit with full fury – lightning, strong winds, the works. In the middle of the night, Krishnan and Shyam made a dash to the cycles where a lot of stuff was still lying, while I scrambled to save the shoes. While doing so I’m certain I saw lightening strike very, very close indeed. The night then became a lot cooler, though the humidity refused to vanish.

In the morning, we left after exchanging addresses with a Kannada speaking policeman. In the cool morning air, it was a dream to cycle on the slowly drying highway. The monsoon weather lasted till Koyilandi (Quilondi), where we had our breakfast of dosa-sambar. After this it became hot, but we fought to reach Kozhikode (Calicut) by 1:30pm.

Calicut is a large city with six-digit phone numbers. A clean place, we had lunch somewhere in the heart of the city, in a classy restaurant (by our standards). It was the first time I saw a classy restaurant, patronized by rich people, serving only lunch plates. Lunch was good and filling, with eight side dishes and unlimited rice to have it with.

After a short rest, we cycled to the museum and art gallery which Krishnan was very keen on seeing due to a special section on KV Krishna Menon. Otherwise, a standard small-sized museum described in the tourist guide. The art gallery has some Vermas.

It was early evening by the time we finished. We started at a leisurely pace on NH17, not knowing where our night halt would be. At darkness we found ourselves outside the Calicut University and explored a nearby canteen for grub. Bad. We then saw a bit of the University which was quite a neat and well-maintained place.

The police stations in Kerala are very different from those in the preceding states, both in construction and in the attitude of their policemen, as we found to our dismay. When we returned to the PS, the guy there refused us accomodation, giving vague reasons of “sourya” (comfort) and “checking”(?). He asked us to try the university guest house. We trudged there to find the manager either away or sleeping, and a sidey unwilling to take responsibility. Went to a hostel to find extremely friendly inhabitants but a similarly sidey watchie who quoted rules and remembered the warden.

To soothe him, we went back outside and phoned the warden from a public booth. Not in town. A few more phone calls and no one’s around. So at one point of time, we were about to call the Vice Chancellor of a University for permission to stay the night when we envisaged the time it would take, and how silly it all was. So with a bad taste in the mouth, we went back to the PS with our sob story.

The policeman reluctantly gave us veranda space, but only after seeing all our i-cards and noting down the minutest details and pointing out the randomest discrepancies in them. (“How does an i-card issued in ’96 and valid till ’99 agree with your statement that yours is a four year course?”) A very frustrating thing when you’re sleepy. Overall, all the PS in Kerala so far were unhelpful, suspicious and distrustful. Compare this to the five minutes it took for the policeman to assure our safety in say, Vengurla or Mangalore. If you don’t have someone who knows Malayalam in Kerala, you’re sunk.

Shyam’s cycle had a breakdown in the morning – his freewheel broke something. We had to wait an hour or so to get it repaired.

Estimate of distance covered today: 70km