Day Six

Today is a travel day. I finally was able to sleep more than five hours last night. I went to bed about 11:30pm and got up at 5:00am but went back to sleep until 6:30am. We called room service for breakfast and we ordered toast and nothing else. After eating some toast, our taxi arrived to take us to the airport. Oh yeah, I wanted you to know that there is one thing in India that could spoil me (besides the food). It is having my laundry done. Here it is so cheap. I can get a shirt cleaned and pressed and picked up and dropped off for 15 rupees or 35 cents. It is so nice to wear clean clothes again. I’m still waiting for a hot shower!!!! We arrived at the airport and got on the plane without any problems. We flew from Delhi to Bombay and then we had to catch another plane. As we exited the plane from the back door to the tarmac, Bud was the first one from our group off the plane. I was a few people him and as he hit the tarmac, there was a bus waiting to take people to the terminal. Bud got on the bus but it was full so the doors closed. I watched Bud ride away thinking that I would take the next bus to the terminal. However, Tony came up to me and asked, where is Bud? I told him he went to the terminal and then Tony said, he shouldn’t have gone. We are to take a different bus to catch our next plane. So my dad, Tony and myself got on the proper bus and went to the check in area for the next plane. While in the terminal, we asked a person about the situation and found out that he was taken to the arrival terminal and it was a 5 minute walk. We then prayed hoping Bud would ask the right questions and end up here before the flight left. The end of the story is that he did show up at the proper time and we all got on the plane from Bombay to Kochin together. Kochin is in the southern state of Kerala. Delhi was a cool place and we were refreshed there from the heat and humidity in Bombay. However, the heat and humidity in Kochin is stifling! As soon as we walked off the plane we began to sweat with out stop. I didn’t know I could sweat this much. The taxi drive to the place that we were to be was a one hour taxi ride. These taxi’s were larger and a little more comfortable. The country side is very tropical. Coconut trees are everywhere you look. There are forests full of coconut trees. This land looks much like Hawaii an it is beautiful. As we traveled along, we passed small town after small town. We crossed a few rivers and streams and made our way to the ocean. We arrived at our hotel and were assigned to our room. Bud and I were sharing a room and the room they put us in had one king size bed. Now let me clarify a little, a king size bed only refers to its size. It was the size of a king bed, but the mattress was not what you might expect on a king size bed. We had a 4 inch piece of covered foam rubber. Bud and I didn’t want to sleep in the same bed so we asked to be moved. They moved us to another room with two beds and as we began to freshen up, we turned on the A/C. As we turned it on, the fan made a loud and continuous sound and on top of that, it didn’t put out cold air. Now Bud and I are sweating profusely and we needed a room with a working A/C. So they moved us again in this room, the A/C worked and the fan worked but we were stuck with a king size bed again. We inspected the restroom and found it the least favorable one of our whole trip. We have no hot water. We asked about this and they told us if we call the front desk, they would send up a bucket of hot water for us. We certainly are on an adventure. Our whole team met in the lobby and took a walk in the city. It is a beautiful little city with tiny shops all over. There are a lot of westerners here, more than I have seen this whole trip. As we walked to the beach, we saw many, many fishermen. This whole region is full of fishermen. As we walked on what is like a boardwalk, we saw many fisherman selling their fish on the roadside. We saw some very large wahoo, dorado, grouper and other species. All of the fish were on the ground and you could buy one or a portion of one and then have it prepared right in your presence. This puts a new twist on fresh fish. We then walked back to the hotel and had dinner on the top floor in an open air seating area. The food was pretty spicy but enjoyable. The end of our night was in a one of the hotel rooms discussing what we are doing until midnight. Please pray for India. It is a needy country worthy of your prayers. I’ll write more later and I love you all very much.