It's two-thirty on a warm Thursday afternoon at an internet cafe on Princess Street, in the center of Fort Kochi. B and K have gone off to find themselves some lunch, but I'm not hungry, and needed to reconfirm some upcoming hotel reservations.

We were just dropped off here by R, a local autorickshaw driver. We 've developed a taste for catching rides in these small, low-cost vehicles, which zip deftly through the crowded streets and alleys of Indian cities. The three of us can just barely squeeze into the passenger bench inside an autorickshaw; it's a good thing we're friends.

We had met R last night when we caught a ride home with him after a performance of traditional Kathakali dance, and he'd given us his card. We liked his affable disposition, so we called him once we decided to spend today visiting some of the sights we couldn't easily walk to. We visited a variety of sights, including the old Jewish quarter of the nearby trading town of Mattencherry (B reports that nearly all the Jewish residents of that quarter emigrated when the new state of Israel was created), the centuries-old dockside go-downs (warehouses) where spices and ayurvedic medicines are stored before being shipped overseas, a temple to Shiva where I had an enjoyable conversation in my "baby Hindi" with a worshipper who was delighted to be able to speak directly with a Western visitor (I understood less of her enthusiastic commentary than she probably thinks I did, but I really did understand part of it!), and the Dutch Palace, constructed by the Portuguese in 1568 for the Maharaja of Kochi. In the palace, I especially liked the murals depicting scenes from the Ramayana and Mahabharata--I'm starting to be able to tell Krishna from Shiva from Brahma from Vishnu from Paravati from Durga...

A reality that's always present when traveling as Westerners in India is the gulf between our experiences and those of most local residents. Some residents, such as the wonderful husband and wife team who run Beena Homestay (where we're staying), are relatively prosperous, with a lovely home and a daughter earning a PhD in Mumbai. But most are much closer to the edge, including our likable driver R. Scoring the opportunity to take us touring today was probably a major stroke of good luck for him: in the end, we paid him 600 rupees (about 13 USD), and he likely also received small commissions from a spice store and an essential oils store where K and I made a few purchases. It's typical for a driver to steer passengers to stores where he can make a commission; R was much less pushy about doing that steering then most are, and we appreciated that--especially given how much a little bit of extra money likely means to him.