thursday 24/1
overheard a conversation between two snobbish people at the hotel. they were talking about the decline of the swedish language, and they sounded just like a black and white film. the woman said: 'chat - a comunication form empty of both contents and form." sweet :) they also talked in very negative terms about text messages, email and modern language in general. they must think i'm a very empty person, both when it comes to contents and forms :)

went to look at a spice plantation. thought that was a must in kerala (maybe anywhere in india?), as the food reminds me of my household classes in school, where the c and i mixed all spices we could find and eventually ended up with un-eatable food. the plantation looked very different to what i imagine it would have done in sweden: everything was growing everywhere - vanilla, pepper, coffee, cocoa and millions of others in a salig blandning. no swedish straight lines in sight :)

got to ride on madola (don't take my version of indian names too seriousy, i just write as i think it sounds, i probably don't get a letter right). he was a 35 year old male elephant with pink ears. it was amazing! i could feel his shoulders move under my legs, and his ears touched my feet. i'm now convinced i was born to ride on an elephant! it was the coolest thing i can remember ever having done. sitting high up in the air on that enormous animal, and being able to comunicate with him by touching his ears and head. afterwards we fed madola and his friend monicha, who was also 35 but a girl. they preferred bananas. elephants are really amazing people. they have the tiniest little wise eyes, the skin is rough someplaces, and soft as baby skin on others, their feet look really soft and sensitive, even though they re bigger than a normal sized dog. we also got to help washing monicha with coconuts. she fell asleep, and looked really cute. and she made us "kissing sounds" to thank us. they are really polite, the elephants! love love love!!!

the friendly fat man gave me oat meal porridge for lunch, as he said that would be good against head ache. to be really honest i don't think i'm going to be too fond of the spicy food even when the head ache is gone... it looks beautiful, though.

went for a walk in the neighbourhood, through the cows resting in the fields just outside the hotel, through narrow streets and then back through the loud "city" where we met javeed again. he gave us his family's adress in kashmir, and assured us it is no problem going there anymore.

took a bus to periyar wildlife sanctuary, where we got on a boat on the big periyar lake. i didn't expect to see any animals, i just wanted to see the place. but we saw lots of weird birds and monkeys, and even buffaloes, bisons, deers and a little elephant family. they were all coming down to the lake to drink as it dawned. we didn't see the tigers, though. apparently there are about 20-30 of them in the area.

as the busride from the hotel to the sanctuary turned out to take only maybe 10 minutes we walked back, together with a swedish couple and indian ajith as our informal "guide". he told us a tiger had showed up a few weeks ago, but he had been old and sick and people were afraid he'd kill children. he didn'd say what happened to him, but i guess he was killed. ajith also told us it is not allowed to capture wild elephants, but that it is difficult to breed them. here in kerala it has been prohibited to capture elephants for a long time (i think it was 50 years or something), but people have been able to buy them from tamil nadu until only last year.

found a wwf shop, and talked to the owner and his mother. the man told us he had no cast, as his christian parents hadn't had him baptised. bought a pink t-shirt with a tiger.  ¶ 1:53 PM